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This web frame explores very
significant example real world complex
adaptive systems (CAS). It explains how the examples
relate to each other, why we all have trouble effectively
comprehending these systems and outlines the items we see as key
to the system and why. By understanding these summaries
you can better frame the interdependencies of important events
such as war in Iraq, new iPhone releases or a cancer diagnosis and see how
they are impacting you.
Example systems frame |
Dietrich Dorner argues complex adaptive systems (CAS) are hard to understand and
manage. He provides examples of how this feature of these
systems can have disastrous consequences for their human
managers. Dorner suggests this is due to CAS properties
psychological impact on our otherwise successful mental
strategic toolkit. To prepare to more effectively manage
CAS, Dorner recommends use of:
- Effective iterative planning and
- Practice with complex scenario simulations; tools which he
reviews.
Complexity catastrophes |
E. O. Wilson reviews the effect of man on the natural world to
date and explains how the two systems can coexist most
effectively.
Adaptive ecology |
Barton Gellman details the strategies used by Vice President
Cheney to align the global system with his economics, defense, and
energy goals.
US vds alignment |
Kevin Kruse argues that from 1930 onwards the corporate elite
and the Republican party have developed and relentlessly
executed strategies to undermine Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Their
successful strategy used the credibility of conservative
religious leaders to:
- Demonstrate religious issues
with the New Deal.
- Integrate the corporate
elite and evangelicals.
- Use the power of corporate
advertising and Hollywood to reeducate the American
people to view the US as historically religious and
the New Deal and liberalism as anti-religious
socialism.
- Focus the message through evangelicals including Vereide and Graham.
- Centralize the strategy through President Eisenhower.
- Add religious elements to
mainstream American symbols: money, pledge;
- Push for prayer in
public school
- Push Congress to promote prayer
- Make elections more
about religious positions.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Strategy is the art of the possible. But it also depends
on persistence.
Inventing Christian America |
Charles Ferguson argues that the US power structure has become
highly corrupt.
Ferguson identifies key events which contributed to the
transformation:
- Junk bonds,
- Derivative
deregulation,
- CMOs,
ABS and analyst fraud,
- Financial network deregulation,
- Financial network consolidation,
- Short term incentives
Subsequently the George W. Bush administration used the
situation to build
a global bubble, which Wall Street
leveraged. The bursting of the
bubble: managed
by the Bush Administration and Bernanke Federal Reserve;
was advantageous to some.
Ferguson concludes that the restructured and deregulated
financial services industry is damaging to
the American economy. And it is supported by powerful, incentive aligned academics.
He sees the result being a rigged system.
Ferguson offers his proposals
for change and offers hope that a charismatic young FDR will appear.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. Once the constraints are removed from CAS
amplifiers, it becomes advantageous to leverage the increased flows. And it is often
relatively damaging not to participate. Corruption and parasitism can become
entrenched.
Financial WMD |
Matt Taibbi describes the phenotypic
alignment of the American justice system. The result
he explains relentlessly grinds the poor and undocumented into
resources to be constrained, consumed and ejected. Even as
it supports and aligns the financial infrastructure into a
potent weapon capable of targeting any company or nation to
extract profits and leave the victim deflated.
Taibbi uses five scenarios to provide a broad picture of the:
activities, crimes, policing, prosecutions, court processes,
prisons and deportation network. The scenarios are:
Undocumented people's neighborhoods, Poor neighborhoods, Welfare
recipients, Credit card debtors and Financial institutions.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The alignment of the
justice system reflects a set of long term strategies and
responses to a powerful global arms race that the US leadership intends to
win.
Aligned justice |
Jonathan Powell describes how the government of, the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
actually operated. Powell was Blair's only chief of
staff.
Mechanics of power |
H. A. Hayek compares and contrasts collectivism and
libertarianism.
Libertarianism |
David Bodanis illustrates how disruptive effects can take
hold. While the French revolution had many driving forces
including famine and
oppression the emergence of a new philosophical vision ensured
that thoughtful leaders
were constrained and conflicted in their responses to the
crisis.
Voltaire's disruptive network |
An epistatic meme suppressed for a thousand years reemerges
during the enlightenment.
It was a poem
encapsulating the ideas of Epicurus rediscovered by a
humanist book hunter.
Greenblatt describes the process of suppression and
reemergence. He argues that the rediscovery was the
foundation of the modern world.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the memetic mechanisms
are discussed.
Constraining happiness |
Isaacson uses the historic development of the global cloud of
web services to explore Ada
Lovelace's ideas about thinking
machines and poetic
science. He highlights the value of computer
augmented human creativity and the need for liberal arts to
fulfill the process.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agent networks and
collaboration are discussed.
Arts technology & intelligence |
Haikonen juxtaposes the philosophy and psychology of
consciousness with engineering practice to refine the debate on
the hard problem of consciousness. During the journey he
describes the architecture of a robot that highlights the
potential and challenges of associative neural
networks.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory is then used to illustrate the
additional requirements and constraints of self-assembling
evolved conscious animals. It will be seen that
Haikonen's neural
architecture, Smiley's Copycat
architecture and molecular biology's intracellular
architecture leverage the same associative properties.
Associatively integrated robots |
Good ideas are successful because they build upon prior
developments that have been successfully implemented.
Johnson demonstrates that they are phenotypic expressions of
memetic plans subject to the laws of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Developing ideas |
A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Within this
Bell Labs was at the center of three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was dismantled AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
Strategic innovation |
Roger Cohen's New York Times opinion about the implications of
BREXIT is summarized. His ideas are then framed by complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory and
reviewed.
BREXIT |
Scott Galloway argues that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google
are monopolists that trade workers for technology.
Monopolies that he argues should be broken up to ensure the
return of a middle class.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on these arguments
assuming they relate to a complex adaptive system (CAS).
While Scott's issue is highly significant his analysis conflicts
with relevant CAS history and theory.
Monopoly job killers |
The IPO of Netscape is
defined as the key emergent event of
the New Economy by Michael Mandel. Following the summary
of Mandel's key points the complex adaptive system (CAS) aspects are highlighted.
New economy |
Ed Conway argues that Bretton Woods produced a unique set of
rules and infrastructure for supporting the global economy. It was
enabled by the experience of Keynes
and White during and after the First World War, their dislike of the Gold Standard,
the necessity of improving
the situation between the wars and the opportunity created
by the catastrophe of the Second
World War.
He describes how it was planned
and developed. How it
emerged from the summit.
And he shows how the opportunity inevitably allowed the US to replace the UK at the center of the global economy.
Like all plans there are
mistakes and Conway takes us through them and how the US recovered the situation as
best it could.
And then Conway describes the period after
Bretton Woods collapsed. He explains what followed
and also compares the relative performance of the various
periods before during and after Bretton Woods.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of Complex Adaptive System (CAS)
theory. Conway's book illustrates the rule making and
infrastructure that together build an evolved amplifier.
He shows the strategies at play of agents that were for and
against the development
and deployment of the system. And The Summit provides a
key piece of the history of our global economic CAS.
Bretton woods |
A key agent in the 1990 - 2008
housing expansion Countrywide is linked into the residential
mortgage value delivery system (VDS)
by Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla. But they show the VDS
was full of amplifiers and control points. With no one
incented to apply the brakes the bubble grew and burst.
Following the summary of Muolo and Padilla's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Housing amplifiers |
Satyajit Das uses an Indonesian company's derivative trades to
introduce us to the workings of the international derivatives
system. Das describes the components of the value delivery
system and the key
transactions. He demonstrates how the system
interacted with emerging economies
expanding them, extracting profits and then moving on as the
induced bubbles burst. Following Das's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Derivative systems |
Johnson & Kwak argue that expanding the national debt
provides a hedge against unforeseen future problems, as long as
creditors are willing to continue lending. They illustrate
different approaches to managing the debt within the US over its history and of the
eighteenth century administrations of England and France.
The US embodies two different political and economic systems which
approach the national debt differently:
- Taxes to support a sinking
fund to ensure credit to leverage fiscal power in:
Wars, Pandemics, Trade disputes, Hurricanes, Social
programs; Starting with Hamilton,
Lincoln & Chase, Wilson, FDR;
- Low taxes, limited infrastructure, with risk assumed by
individuals: Advocated by President's Jefferson & Madison,
Reagan, George W. Bush
(Gingrich);
Johnson & Kwak develop a model of what the US
government does. They argue that the conflicting
sinking fund and low tax approaches leaves the nation 'stuck in
the middle' with a future problem.
And they offer their list of 'first principles' to help
assess the best approach for moving from 2012 into the
future.
They conclude the question is still political. They hope
it can be resolved with an awareness of their detailed
explanations. They ask who is willing to
push all the coming risk onto individuals.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Historically developing within the global cotton value delivery
system, key CAS features are highlighted.
National debt |
Robert Gordon argues that the inventions of the second
industrial revolution were the foundation for
American economic growth. Gordon shows how flows of people
into difficult rural America built a population base
which then took the opportunity to move on to urban settings: Houses, Food in supermarkets,
Clothes in
department stores;
that supported increasing productivity and standard of living.
The deployment of nationwide networks: Rail, Road, Utilities;
terminating in the urban housing and work places allowing the workers to
leverage time saving goods and services, which helped grow
the economy.
Gordon describes the concomitant transformation of:
- Communications
and advertising
- Credit
and finance
- Public
health and the health
care network
- Health insurance
- Education
- Social
and welfare services
Counter intuitively the constraints
introduced before and in the Great Depression and the demands of World War 2
provide the amplifiers that drive the inventions deeply and
fully into every aspect of the economy between 1940 and 1970
creating the exceptional growth and standard of living of post
war America.
Subsequently the
rate of growth was limited until the shift of women
into the workplace and the full networking of
voice and data supported the Internet and World Wide Web
completed the third industrial revolution, but the effects were
muted by the narrow reach of the technologies.
The development of Big Data, Robots,
and Artificial Intelligence may support additional growth,
but Gordon is unconvinced because of the collapse of
the middle class.
Following our summary of Gordon's book RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
American growth |
Carl Menger argues that the market induced the emergence of
money based on the attractive features of precious metals.
He compares the potential for government edicts to create money
but sees them as lacking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
With two hundred years of additional knowledge we conclude that
precious metals are not as attractive as Menger asserts.
Government backed promissory notes are analogous to:
- Other evolved CAS forms of ubiquitous high energy
transaction intermediates and
- Schematic strategies that are proving optimal in
supporting survival and replication in the currently
accessible niches.
Emergence of money |
Eric Beinhocker sets out to answer a question Adam Smith
developed in the Wealth of Nations: what is wealth? To do
this he replaces traditional
economic theory, which is based on the assumption that an
economy is a system in equilibrium, with complexity economics in which
the economy is modeled as a complex adaptive system (CAS).
He introduces Sugerscape
to illustrate an economic CAS model in action. And then he
explains the major features of a CAS economy: Dynamics,
Agents, Networks, Emergence, and
Evolution.
Building on complexity economics Beinhocker reviews how evolution applies to
the economy to build wealth. He explains how design spaces
map strategies to instances of physical and
social
technologies. And he identifies the interactors and
selection mechanism of economic
evolution.
This allows Beinhocker to develop a new definition
of wealth.
In the rest of the book Beinhocker looks at the consequences of
adopting complexity economics for business and society: Strategy, Organization, Finance,
& Politics
& Policy.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS explores his conclusions
and aligns Beinhocker's model of CAS with the CAS theory and evidence we
leverage.
Economic complexity |
Sven Beckert describes the historic transformation of the
growing, spinning, weaving, manufacture of cotton goods and
their trade over time. He describes the rise of a first global
commodity, its dependence on increasing: military power, returns for
the control points in the value delivery system(VDS), availability of land
and labor to work it including slaves.
He explains how cotton offered the opportunity for
industrialization further amplifying the productive capacity of
the VDS and the power of the control points. This VDS was quickly
copied. The increased capacity of the industrialized
cotton complex adaptive system (CAS) required more labor to
operate the machines. Beckert describes the innovative introduction of wages
and the ways found to
mobilize industrial labor.
Beckert describes the characteristics of the industrial cotton
CAS which made it flexible enough to become globally interconnected.
Slavery made the production system so cost effective that all
prior structures collapsed as they interconnected. So when
the US civil war
blocked access to the major production nodes in the
American Deep South the CAS began adapting.
Beckert describes the global
reconstruction that occurred and the resulting destruction of the traditional ways
of life in the global countryside. This colonial expansion
further enriched and empowered the 'western' nation
states. Beckert explains how other countries responded
by copying the colonial strategies and creating the
opportunities for future armed conflict among the original
colonialists and the new upstarts.
Completing the adaptive shifts Beckert describes the advocates
for industrialization
in the colonized global south and how over time they
joined the global cotton CAS disrupting the early western
manufacturing nodes and creating the current global CAS
dominated by merchants like Wal-Mart
pulling goods through a network of clothing manufacturers,
spinning and weaving factories, and growers competing with each
other on cost.
Following our summary of Beckert's book, RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The transformation of
disconnected peasant farmers, pastoral warriors and their lands
into a supply chain for a highly profitable industrial CAS
required the development over time: of military force, global
transportation and communication networks, perception and
representation control networks, capital stores and flows,
models, rules, standards and markets; along with the support at
key points of: barriers, disruption, and infrastructure and
evolved amplifiers. The emergent system demonstrates the
powerful constraining influence of extended phenotypic
alignment.
Globalization from cotton |
The complexity and problems of the US
Health network is described in terms of complex adaptive system
(CAS) theory.
The network:
- Is deeply embedded in the US nation state. It reflects the
conflict between two
opposing visions for the US. The emergence
of a parasitic elite further constrains the choices
available to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the
network.
- Is incented to focus on localized competition generating
massive & costly duplication of services within
physician based health care operations instead of proven
public health strategies. This process drives
increasing research & treatment complexity and promotes hope
for each new technological breakthrough.
- Is amplified by the legislatively structured separation
and indirection of service development,
provision, reimbursement and payment.
- Is impacted by the different political strategies for
managing the increasing
cost of health care for the demographic bulge of retirees.
- Is presented with acute
and chronic
problems to respond to. As currently setup the network
is tuned to handle acute problems. The interactions
with patients tend to be transactional.
- Includes a legislated health insurance infrastructure
which is:
- Costly and inefficient
- Structured around yearly
contracts which undermine long-term health goals and
strategies.
- Is supported by increasingly regulated HCIT
which offers to improve data sharing and quality but has
entrenched commercial EHR
products deep within the hospital systems.
Health care |
Deaton describes the wellbeing
of people around the world today. He explains the powerful benefit of public
health strategies and the effect of growth in
material wellbeing but also the corrosive effects of
aid.
Following our summary of Deaton's arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. The situation he describes is complex including
powerful amplifiers, alignment and incentives that overlap
broadly with other RSS summaries of adaptations of: The
biosphere, Politics, Economics,
Philosophy and Health care.
Improving wellbeing |
Donald Barlett and James Steele write about their investigations
of the major problems afflicting US
health care as of 2006.
Problems of US health care |
Glenn Steele & David Feinberg review the development of the
modern Geisinger healthcare business after its near collapse
following the abandoned merger with Penn State AMC. After an overview of the
business, they describe how a calamity
unfolding around them supported building a vision of a
better US health care network. And they explain:
- How they planned
out the transformation,
- Leveraging an effective
governance structure,
- Using a strategy
to gain buy in,
- Enabling
reengineering at the clinician patient
interface.
- Implementing the reengineering for acute, chronic
& hot
spot care; to help the patients and help the
physicians.
- Geisinger's leverage of biologics.
- Reengineering healing with ProvenExperience.
- Where Geisinger is headed next.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame their ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory.
E2E insured quality care |
Robert Pearl explains the perspectives of a health care leader
and son who know that the current health care network interacts
with human behavior to induce a poorly performing system that
caused his father's death. But he is confident that these
problem perceptions can be changed. Once that occurs he
asserts the network will become more integrated, coordinated,
collaborative, better led, and empathetic to their
patients. The supporting technology infrastructure will be
made highly interoperable. All that will reduce medical
errors and make care more cost effective.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame his ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
including synergistic examples of these systems in
operation. The health care network is built out of
emergent human agents. All agents must model the signals
they perceive to represent and respond to them. Pinker
explains how this occurs. Sapolsky explains why fear and
hierarchy are so significant. He includes details of Josh
Green's research on morality and death. Charles Ferguson
highlights the pernicious nature of financial incentives.
Bad medical models |
US healthcare is ripe for
disruption. Christensen, Grossman and Hwang argue that
technologies are emerging which will support low cost business
models that will undermine the current network. Applying
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory to these arguments suggests that the current power hierarchy can effectively resist
these progressive forces.
Disrupting health care |
Atul Gawande writes about the opportunity for a thirty per cent
improvement in quality in medicine by organizing
to deploy as agent based teams using shared schematic
plans and distributed signalling or as he puts it the use of checklists.
With vivid examples from a variety of situations including construction, air crew support and global health care Gawande illustrates
the effects of
complexity and how to organize to cope with it.
Following the short review RSS
additionally relates Gawande's arguments to its models of
complex adaptive systems (CAS) positioning his discussion within
the network of US health care,
contrasting our view of complexity, comparing the forces shaping
his various examples and reviewing facets of complex
failures.
Complexity checklists |
Friedman and Martin leverage the lifelong data collected on
1,528 bright individuals selected by Dr. Lewis Terman starting
in 1921, to understand what aspects of the subjects' lives
significantly affected their longevity. Looking broadly
across each subject's: Personality,
Education, Parental impacts,
Energy
levels, Partnering,
Careers, Religion,
Social networks,
Gender, Impact from war and
trauma; Friedman and Martin are able to develop a set of model pathways,
which each individual could be seen to select and travel
along. Some paths led to the traveler having a long
life. Others were problematic. The models imply that
the US approach to health and
wellness should focus
more on supporting
the development and selection of beneficial pathways.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The pathways are most
applicable to bright individuals with the resources and support
necessary to make and leverage choices they make. Striving
to enter and follow a beneficial pathway seems sensible but may
be impossible for individuals trapped in a collapsing network,
starved of resources.
Promoting longevity |
Gawande uses his personal experience, analytic skills and lots
of stories of innovators to demonstrate better ways of coping
with aging and death. He introduces the lack of focus on
aging and death in traditional medicine. And goes on to
show how technology has amplified
this stress point. He illustrates the traditional possibility of the
independent self, living fully while aging with the
support of the extended family. Central
planning responded to the technological and societal changes
with poorly designed infrastructure and funding. But
Gawande then contrasts the power of
bottom up innovations created by experts responding to
their own family situations and belief
systems.
Gawande then explores in depth the challenges
that unfold currently as we age and become infirm.
He notes that the world is following the US path. As such it will
have to understand the dilemma of
integrating medical treatment and hospice
strategies. He notes that all parties
involved need courage to cope.
He proposes medicine must aim to assure
well being. At that point all doctors will practice
palliative care.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agency, death,
evolution, cooperation and adaptations
to new technologies are discussed.
Agent death |
Sonia Shah reviews the millennia old (500,000 years) malarial arms race between Humanity, Anopheles
mosquitoes and Plasmodium. 250 - 500 million people are
infected each year with malaria and one million die.
Malaria |
Peter Medawar writes about key historic events in the evolution
of medical science.
Medical science events |
Using John Holland's theory of adaptation in complex
systems Baldwin and Clark propose an evolutionary theory of
design. They show how this can limit the interdependencies
that generate complexity
within systems. They do this through a focus on
modularity.
Modular designed systems |
Lou Gerstner describes the challenges he faced and the
strategies he used to successfully restructure the computer
company IBM.
Compartmented systems |
Grady Booch advocates an object oriented approach to computer
software design.
Object based systems |
Bertrand Meyer develops arguments, principles and strategies for
creating modular software. He concludes that abstract data
types and inheritence make object orientation a superior
methodology for software construction. Complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory suggests agents provide an alternative strategy
to the use of objects.
Software construction |
Tools and the businesses that produce them have evolved
dramatically. W Brian Arthur shows how this occurred.
Tools |
Matt Ridley demonstrates the creative effect of man on the
World. He highlights:
- A list of
preconditions resulting in
- Additional niche
capture & more free time
- Building a network
to interconnect memes processes & tools which
- Enabling inter-generational
transfers
- Innovations
that help reduce environmental stress even as they leverage fossil
fuels
Memetic trading networks |
Brynjolfsson and McAfee explore the effects of Moore's law on the
economy. They argue it has generated exponential
growth. This has been due to innovation.
It has created a huge bounty of
additional wealth.
But the wealth is spread unevenly across
society. They look at the short and long term implications of
the innovation bounty and spread
and the possible future of
technology.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory.
Brilliant technologies |
Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
Education versus guilds |
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld's New York Times opinion based on The
Triple Package is summarized. Their ideas are then framed
by CAS theory and reviewed.
What drives success |
Peter Turchin describes how major pre-industrial empires
developed due to effects of geographic boundaries constraining
the empires and their neighbors' interactions. Turchin
shows how the asymmetries of breeding rates and resource growth
rates results in dynamic cycles within cycles. After the
summary of Turchin's book complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
is used to augment Turchins findings.
Warrior groups |
Through the operation of three different food chains Michael
Pollan explores their relative merits. The application of
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory highlights the value of evolutionary
testing of the food chain.
Natural systems |
E. O. Wilson & Bert Holldobler illustrate how bundled cooperative strategies can
take hold. Various social insects have developed
strategies which have allowed them to capture the most valuable
available niches. Like humans they invest in
specialization and cooperate to subdue larger, well equipped
competitors.
Insect superorganisms |
Computational
theory of the mind and evolutionary
psychology provide Steven Pinker with a framework on which
to develop his psychological arguments about the mind and its
relationship to the brain. Humans captured a cognitive niche by
natural selection 'building out'
specialized aspects of their bodies and brains resulting in a system of mental organs
we call the mind.
He garnishes and defends the framework with findings from
psychology regarding: The visual
system - an example of natural
selections solutions to the sensory challenges
of inverse
modeling of our
environment; Intensions - where
he highlights the challenges of hunter gatherers - making sense
of the objects they perceive and predicting what they imply and
natural selections powerful solutions;
Emotions - which Pinker argues are
essential to human prioritizing and decision making; Relationships - natural selection's
strategies for coping with the most dangerous competitors, other
people. He helps us understand marriage, friendships and war.
These conclusions allow him to understand the development and
maintenance of higher callings: Art, Music, Literature, Humor,
Religion, & Philosophy; and develop a position on the meaning of life.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) modeling allows RSS to frame Pinker's arguments
within humanity's current situation, induced by powerful evolved
amplifiers: Globalization,
Cliodynamics, The
green revolution and resource
bottlenecks; melding his powerful predictions of the
drivers of human behavior with system wide constraints.
The implications are discussed.
Computationally adapted mind |
CAS behavior |
Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
Conscious access |
Reading and writing present a conundrum. The reader's
brain contains neural networks tuned to reading. With
imaging a written word can be followed as it progresses from the
retina through a functional chain that asks: Are these letters?
What do they look like? Are they a word? What does it sound
like? How is it pronounced? What does it mean? Dehaene
explains the importance of
education in tuning the brain's networks for reading as
well as good strategies for teaching reading and countering dyslexia. But
he notes the reading
networks developed far too recently to have directly evolved.
And Dehaene asks why humans are unique in developing
reading and culture.
He explains the cultural
engineering that shaped writing to human vision and the exaptations and neuronal structures that
enable and constrain reading and culture.
Dehaene's arguments show how cellular, whole animal and cultural
complex adaptive system (CAS) are
related. We review his explanations in CAS terms and use
his insights to link cultural CAS that emerged based on reading
and writing with other levels of CAS from which they emerge.
Evolved reading |
Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
Receptor indirection |
Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
Accumulating small changes |
Russ Abbott explores the impact on science of epiphenomena and
the emergence of agents.
Autonomous emergence |
Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables the development of Darwinian competition.
Constraint based phenomena |
|
|
CAS behavior
Summary
The complexity of behavior is explored through Sapolsky
developing scenarios of our best and worst behaviors across time
spans, and scientific subjects including: anthropology,
psychology, neuroscience, sociology. The rich network of
adaptive flows he outlines provides insights and highlight
challenges for scientific research on behavior.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory builds on Sapolsky's
details highlighting the strategies that evolution has captured
to successfully enter niches we now occupy.
Behave
In Robert Sapolsky's book
'Behave' he binds his research on baboons to the complex
adaptive systems ( This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS) that
influence their and our behavior.
The Behavior
Sapolsky explains the approach of the book. In the first
part some good or bad behavior occurs driven by selection of a
strategy. Typically the context and meaning of the
behavior are more complex than the mechanics. The
complexity can
only be understood by incorporating all of the following
aspects:
- What happened one second
before - must be driven by the nervous system.
- What happened in the prior
seconds to minutes that triggered the nervous system
to generate the behavior - is driven by sensory stimuli
- What happened in the prior
hours to days that altered the sensitivity of the
nervous system to the stimuli - is the impact of hormones are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy.
- Long term
potentiation (LTP) is the increasing excitability of a neural connection which persists over time. It:
- Includes a mechanism in the hippocampus that leverages the architecture of NMDA channels. Sapolsky explains "that when NMDA receptors finally activate and open their channels, it is calcium, rather than sodium, that flows in. This causes an array of changes; here are a few:
- The calcium tidal wave causes more copies of glutamate receptors to be inserted into the dendritic spin's membrane, making the neuron more responsive to glutamate thereafter.
- The calcium also alters glutamate receptors that are already on the front lines of that dendritic spine; each will now be more sensitive to glutamate signals.
- The calcium also causes the synthesis of peculiar neurotransmitters in the dendritic spine, which are released and travel backward across the synapse; there they increase the amount of glutamate released from the axon terminal after future action potentials."
- Spine number and branch length in the hippocampus and frontal cortex are increased by estrogen.
- Is affected by stress hormones: glucocorticoids; which act differently on the hippocampus & amygdala and
- Initially promote hippocampal LTP but under sustained conditions disrupt LTP and promote LTD.
- Under sustained conditions in the amygdala increases BDNF levels and expands dendrites in the BLA & BNST.
- Must further persist beyond the life of a particular synapse. Additional mechanisms ensure this happens over days, months and years.
- Is also implemented by new synapse formation based strategies. Calcium flowing into the spine diffuses and triggers the formation of a new spine near the current LTP.
- Occurs throughout the neuronal network:
- Fear conditioning leverages synaptic LTP in the BLA.
- Dopamine networks use it to associate stimuli with rewards.
of neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
& other forms of neuroplasticity is lasting change to the brain that occurs throughout life. It is also termed neural plasticity. The changes include:
- The strength of dendritic input alters due to genetic,
neural and hormonal signals
- Hebb notes that memories
require strengthening of preexisting synapses. Glutamate
responsive neurons' post
synaptic dendritic spines have two types of receptor:
non-NMDA and NMDA.
NMDA channels are responsible for this strengthening
mechanism. LTP then occurs
to prolong the increase in excitability of the
synapse.
- The LTP operation results in calcium diffusion which
triggers new spine formation in adjacent parts of the
dendrite. Eventually that can stimulate dentrite
growth enabling more neurons to connect.
- Short term stress promotes hippocampal
LTP.
- Sustained stress promotes:
- Hippocampal & frontal
cortex LTD &
suppresses LTP. Subsequent reductions in NCAM then reduce dendrite and
synapse density.
- Amygdala LTP and
suppresses LTD boosting fear
conditioning. It increases BDNF
levels and expands dendrites in the BLA.
- Depression and anxiety reduce hippocampal
dendrite and spine number by reducing BDNF.
- The axon's conditions for
- Initiating an action
potential.
- Progesterone boosts GABA-ergic neurons response to GABA
decreasing the excitability of other neurons over a
period of hours.
- Duration of a neuron's
refractory period. Testosterone
shortens the refractory period of amygdala and amygdala target
neurons over a period of hours.
- Synaptic connections being
constantly removed and recreated
- Synapses being created or destroyed. Stimulation
generates additional dendritic spines which become
associated with a nearby axon terminal and within weeks a
synapse forms. The synapse then contributes calcium
diffusion through LTP triggering more spine
formation. When dendritic spines recede synapses
disappear.
- Cortical maps change to reflect alterations in the
inputs and outputs from the body.
- Birth of brain cells in many areas of adult brains: the
hippocampus (where 3% are
replaced each month) and olfactory bulb and lesser amounts
in the cortex.
- Restructuring after brain damage including axonal plasticity.
Distant rerouting of axons is observed but no mechanism
has been identified yet.
- Vision is plastic in predators, where the eyes are moved
during final development. Dehaene
argues for neuronal
recycling supporting reading.
occurring over prior days
to months.
- Cascading back through adolescence and
childhood
to the genome
and evolutionary
pressures occurring over the prior millions of years
that supported the development of different cultures.
In the second part of the book Sapolsky looks at realms of
behavior where the strategies already described are most
important. This includes behaviors that are:
He concludes by summarizing that nothing seems to cause
anything; instead everything just modulates something
else. But he says we lucky educated humans must try to cope with
complexity and be our best. We can be scientific and
compassionate indicates an emotional state where resonance with someone else's distress leads one to help them. .
And he notes the challenges in developing these complex
descriptions:
- In different scientific silos the terms mean different
things.
- Ideology also generates a definitional
quagmire.
- The terms that anchor this book are difficult to define
because they are profoundly context dependent. So
Sapolsky looks at the complex adaptive system (
This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS) biology of both our best
AND worst behaviors across the integrated temporal, spatial
and cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
network.
One Second Before
Sapolsky explores the neurobiology of the brain that commanded
the muscles to act in the second before the behavior. He
leverages Maclean's Triune
brain is Dr. Paul MacLean's popular but discredited 1940s theory of the brain. He proposed a three layer structure: - Reptilian inner brain containing circuits for basic survival; which is interfaced to layer 2 through the hypothalamus and together with the brain stem, spine and projections into the body make up the autonomic nervous system.
- Limbic middle brain containing emotional circuits which signal layer 1 through the hypothalamus.
- Rational outer brain which is uniquely human.
because while wrong it provides a good organizing
metaphor for the automaticity, emotion are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. and cognition is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. aspects of
behaviors. What were the crucial proximate Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents?
- The limbic system supports emotional circuits: Amygdala, Hippocampus, Septum, Habenula, Mammillary bodies; all of which signals the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The broad interconnections of these regions with a part of the frontal lobe suggested to Walle Nauta that it (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) is a quasi-member of the limbic network.
is layer 2 of the triune
The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Samuel
modeling is described as an approach.
model,
a focus of the emotions of our best and worst
behaviors. It processes the important sensory stimuli:
smell for rats, vision
for primates; with complex, M. Mitchell Waldrop describes a vision of complexity via: - Rich interactions that allow a system to undergo spontaneous self-organization
- Systems that are adaptive
- More predictability than chaotic systems by bringing order and chaos into
- Balance at the edge of chaos
excitatory & inhibitory circuits, a network of interconnected neurons which perform signalling, modeling and control functions. In Cajal's basic neural circuits the signalling is unidirectional. He identified three classes of neurons in the circuits: - Sensory, Interneurons, Motor; which are biochemically distinct and suffer different disease states.
.
- It interfaces to layer 1 regulatory aspects of the
autonomic nervous system through the hypothalamus is essential to many operations of the body. It has many small sub-regions whose main functions are to regulate hunger, thirst, temperature, sexual behavior, and similar body operations. Its (paraventricular nucleus) is closely connected to the pituitary which secrets hormones into the bloodstream ( => acth -> adrenal cortex => cortisol (+)-> amygdala & (-)-> hippocampus). .
The autonomic nervous system supports both fight/flight
and calm. The hypothalamus also regulates the release
of hormones are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy.
.
And these state changes feed back to the brain influencing
behavior.
- It interfaces to layer 3 of the triune brain
- The cortex includes the paleocortex a thin sheet of cells that mostly process smell, archicortex and the neocortex. The cerebral cortex is a pair of large folded sheets of brain tissue, one on either side of the top of the head connected by the corpus callosum. It includes the occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal lobes.
is layer 3 of the triune model. Most sensory signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy.
flow there
to be interpreted. It supports thought. But
Sapolsky emphasizes its models are
tightly influenced by the emotional signals projected
in through the frontal
cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. and back to the limbic areas.
Within this representation Sapolsky calls out three brain
regions that are the most significant contributors to this final
common pathway that funnels all the factors of the overall This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS, described in subsequent
chapters of Behave, to converge and
create our best and worst behaviors. The main Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents are the: Amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
, Frontal cortex,
mesolimbic includes projections between the tegmentum and the accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus; /mesocortical
dopamine pathways includes projections between the tegmentum and the prefrontal cortex; ; with other occasional bit
players. And their contributions alter as the agent's
adapt depending on the other factors of the This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS. This then affects the
other factors: fusiform is a region of the brain which supports advanced mechanisms of shape recognition and implements the early stages of reading. Subliminal priming with words did not depend on the shape of the word. The fusiform gyrus was able to process the abstract identity of a word without caring if it was upper or lower case. While high up in the cortex it can operate below the level of conscious experience. It contributes to social emotions with: - Its face area being more activated by faces with in-group skin color.
- It activating when shown pictures of cars in automobile aficionados.
- It activating when shown pictures of birds in birdwatchers; since it really recognizes examples of items from an individual's emotionally salient categories.
pays attention to what
ever has become highly salient to that individual.
The Amygdala
The amygdala is strongly associated with aggression, fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amydala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. , anxiety is manifested in the amygdala mediating inhibition of dopamine rewards. Major anxiety results in elevated glucocorticoids and reduces hippocampal dendrite & spine density. Some estrogen receptor variants are associated with anxiety in women. , social & emotional are emotions that are induced in response to other people's signals, are implemented by specific brain regions including: Prefrontal cortex, Insula cortex, Anterior cingulate cortex, Amygdala; receive lots of projections from interoceptive networks. Sapolsky asserts in the moments just before we prioritize a consequential act the process is less rational and autonomous than we assume. There are many significant signals from the prior seconds to minutes that effect social emotions: - Our brains respond subliminally to skin color very quickly: Amygdala activates, Fusiform face area activates; prior to the conscious stream activating the anterior cingulate and DLPFC which then inhibit the amygdala.
- Social dominance is culture independent and accurately subliminally assessed after a 40-millisecond exposure. Stable status relations activate the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and DLPFC, while a dynamic situation also activates the amygdala.
- People who are subliminally judged attractive by the medial orbitofrontal cortex are considered kinder, smarter and more honest. They are given more breaks.
- Faces and eyes in particular are most important subliminal cues. They are monitored by the fusiform. People respond more appropriately under the subliminal influence of eyes.
- Olfactory sensors send more direct projections to the limbic network than other sensory networks. Pheromones signal fear activating the amygdala.
- Observing pain responses in others results in empathy even among young children.
- Words are important emotional signals providing unconscious priming of social responses. Kahneman & Tversky demonstrated how the phrase '95% survival rate' is found to be a more acceptable choice than '5% death rate'. Sapolsky notes that prosocial word priming fosters cooperation with antisocial word priming doing the opposite.
- Cultural objects such as visible: flags, team badges; subliminally modify in-group outgroup decisions.
- The presence of women in a situation alters the responses of men: Increased risk-taking, more focus on luxuries, increased aggression; in circumstances where conflict is already encouraged but not when status is achieved prosocially.
- Physical environment shapes behavior as demonstrated by Philip Zimbardo and leveraged in broken windows policing.
- Bodily adjustments to sensory structures introduce adaptive complexity, with the brain being influenced to become more sensitive and alter the sensor networks to make some more sensitive. But these adaptations also vary culturally. Collectivist cultures focus on a visual scene's surrounding contextual information while people from individualistic cultures focus on the focal object!
decision making, social reflects the amygdala's particular sensitivity to unsettling social circumstances that stimulate anxiety because of uncertainty. Being unsure of your place in a hierarchy is unsettling activating the amygdala. Rationally going against a counter-factual but group agreed judgement stimulates the amygdala.
uncertainty is when a factor is hard to measure because it is dependent on many interconnected agents and may be affected by infrastructure and evolved amplifiers. This is different from Risk. , [moral] disgust is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala. ; with lots of
supporting experimental evidence. It gets signals from all
sensory systems. It is especially signalled about: pain amplifies the aggression response of people by interoceptive signalling of brain regions providing social emotions including the PAG projecting to the amygdala; making aggressive people more so and less aggressive people less so. Pain is the main reason people visit the ED in the US. , disgust. It sends
alarms throughout the brain & body and has fast circuits to
stimulate movement. Sapolsky explains how learning allows
signals interpreted in sub-regions (e.g. auditory in the BLA is the basolateral amygdala, a relatively recently evolved part of the amygdala which learns stimuli to fear and then signals the central amygdala. It recieves inputs from all sensory networks. Some are fast pathways that allow the BLA to detect and respond when the sensory cortex is unaware. But it is far less accurate than the cortex. The BLA's learning involves increased excitability of synapses coupling the BLA and central amygdala. This is due to gene driven: Increased levels of growth factors promoting new connections, more receptors for excitatory neurotransmitters in dendritic spines. The BLA also responds to signals from the frontal cortex that a stimulus no longer appears frightening. This subset of BLA cells respond inhibiting the associating subset. Stress and glucocorticoids increase levels of CRH and BDNF encouraging the building of new dendrites and synapses. ) of the amygdala to be
bound: synaptic, a neuron structure which provides a junction with other neurons. It generates signal molecules, either excitatory or inhibitory, which are kept in vesicles until the synapse is stimulated when the signal molecules are released across the synaptic cleft from the neuron. The provisioning of synapses is under genetic control and is part of long term memory formation as identified by Eric Kandel. Modulation signals (from slow receptors) initiate the synaptic strengthening which occurs in memory. , growth factor are chemical signals which stimulate cellular growth. In the brain they induce plasticity. changes refers to lasting changes to the brain that occur throughout the life span of the organism. Many aspects of the brain can be altered into adulthood. Almost anything in the nervous system can change in response to sustained stimulus. And in a different environment the changes will often reverse. The changes include: - The strength of dendritic input alters due to genetic, neural and hormonal signals
- Hebb notes that memories require strengthening of preexisting synapses. Glutamate responsive neurons' post synaptic dendritic spines have two types of receptor: non-NMDA and NMDA. NMDA channels are responsible for this strengthening mechanism. LTP then occurs to prolong the increase in excitability of the synapse.
- The LTP operation results in calcium diffusion which triggers new spine formation in adjacent parts of the dendrite. Eventually that can stimulate dentrite growth enabling more neurons to connect.
- Short term stress promotes hippocampal LTP.
- Sustained stress promotes:
- Hippocampal & frontal cortex LTD & suppresses LTP. Subsequent reductions in NCAM then reduce dendrite and synapse density.
- Amygdala LTP and suppresses LTD boosting fear conditioning. It increases BDNF levels and expands dendrites in the BLA.
- Depression and anxiety reduce hippocampal dendrite and spine number by reducing BDNF.
- The axon's conditions for
- Initiating an action potential.
- Progesterone boosts GABA-ergic neurons response to GABA decreasing the excitability of other neurons over a period of hours.
- Duration of a neuron's refractory period. Testosterone shortens the refractory period of amygdala and amygdala target neurons over a period of hours.
- Synaptic connections being constantly removed and recreated
- Synapses being created or destroyed. Stimulation generates additional dendritic spines which become associated with a nearby axon terminal and within weeks a synapse forms. The synapse then contributes calcium diffusion through LTP triggering more spine formation. When dendritic spines recede synapses disappear.
- Cortical maps change to reflect alterations in the inputs and outputs from the body.
- Birth of brain cells in many areas of adult brains: the hippocampus (where 3% are replaced each month) and olfactory bulb and lesser amounts in the cortex.
- Restructuring after brain damage including axonal plasticity. Distant rerouting of axons is observed but no mechanism has been identified yet.
- Vision is plastic in predators, where the eyes are moved during final development. Dehaene argues for neuronal recycling supporting reading.
; to the central area is a relatively ancient evolved part of the amygdala which processes 'innate' fears. It projects to the BNST to raise the heart rate and blood pressure in preparation for fight and flight.
linking the signals to fear. And signals from the frontal
cortex can teach the amygdala not to fear some bound signal any
more: medial
PFC in Buckner's fMRI based analysis is part of the brain's default mode network. It facilitates the flexible use of information during the construction of self-relevant mental simulations. Nauta considered its ventromedial part as participating in the limbic system. With the medial temporal lobe it converges on important integration nodes: posterior cingulate cortex. signals to the inhibitory circuits of the BLA that a
sound is not to be feared. Even when involved in pleasure is the outcome of the dopamine reward system, argues UCSF professor Robert Lustig. He, like the early Christians, contrasts [addiction oriented] pleasure with serotonin driven happiness & contentment. the amygdala
actually contributes awareness of the uncertainty of a potential
pleasure and anxiety, fear & anger is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. that the reward may not
happen. And feedback
from the autonomic nervous system does not alter what is
felt but does change the intensity. Fear and aggression
are not inevitably intertwined by the amygdala but typically
become so for people who are already prone to this and when
aggression is reactive and frenzied.
The Frontal Cortex
Sapolsky stresses the frontal
cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. makes you do the harder thing when it's the right
thing to do. It is significant that it is the last brain
region to fully mature. This only happens during the mid-twenties.
The frontal cortex is highly distinctive: evolution, size,
complexity. There are many unique, highly individuated,
primate genes active in
the frontal cortex. And one unique cell type: the von Economo neuron are also called spindle neurons and are:
- Found only in: Primates, Whales, Dolphins, Elephants;
- Present in the: Insula,
Anterior cingulate -
focused on empathy; integrating
and repurposing these basic facilities into high level
capabilities such as moral disgust.
- First neurons destroyed by FTD.
which is central to empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy.
(ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
) and binding the insula to moral disgust.
The frontal cortex looks for patterns in its situational models
and selects from strategic actions. It partners with the cerebellum is involved with the efficiency of fine movement. It modulates the force and range of motion and is involved in motor coordination and the learning of motor skills. Damage to the cerebellum impairs standing, walking, or performance of coordinated movements. A virtuoso pianist or other performing musician depends on their cerebellum. The cerebellum receives visual, auditory, vestibular, and somatosensory information. It also receives information about individual muscular movements being directed by the brain. The cerebellum integrates this information and modifies the motor outflow, exerting a coordinating and smoothing effect on the movements. However, patients born without a cerebellum have survived reasonably well. The cerebellum is part of the implicit learning mechanism. It is required for the rabbit eye-blink to be classically conditioned to respond to a sound, and puff of air (threat to eye). It integrates the sound and puff and outputs the response to the motor area (blink). which takes
over repeated strategies including: bravery, honesty; making
them automatic and rapid. Within the frontal cortex the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is - The front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. It evolved most recently. During adolescence when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent strategies: ventral striatum. The PFC has been implicated in planning, working memory: dorsolateral; decision making: Orbitofrontal cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC circuits track internal reward driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or restraint, especially between cognition and emotions. It imposes an overarching strategy for managing working memory. It is essential for thinking about multiple items with different labels. It includes neurons that are interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat. Once it has made a decision it signals the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease excitability of the PFC.
(PFC) sub-region is the decider, but it gets tired easily after
which decisions become less prosocial is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act. .
Social complexity expands the frontal cortex. FTD is frontotemporal degeneration, the most common form of dementia for people under age 60. It results from progressive loss of neurons from the frontal or temporal lobes. The first neurons known to die are von Economo neurons. Tau and TDP43 proteins both congregate in these areas. People with FTD display behavioral disinhibition and socially inappropriate behaviors. They appear apathetic and don't make decisions because the PFC is being destroyed. There are three main types: Behavioral variant, primary progressive aphasia, Disturbances of motor function; destroys it. The dorsolateral PFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
is the most
socially rational part of the prefrontal cortex. It
inhibits the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
's
out-grouping responses. The ventromedial
PFC (vmPFC) is: - Focused on the impact of emotion on decision making
- A participant in limbic system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the results of these somatic marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the issues.
imparts essential decision making to social/emotional
challenges and tightly integrates with limbic structures supports emotional circuits: Amygdala, Hippocampus, Septum, Habenula, Mammillary bodies; all of which signals the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The broad interconnections of these regions with a part of the frontal lobe suggested to Walle Nauta that it (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) is a quasi-member of the limbic network. .
These two subparts are inversely correlated but typically
collaborate: both are needed in
different situations to be prosocial. Stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
impacts the frontal
cortex: like distraction and heavy cortical load, it can
dissociate the frontocortical importance signal about some
action from the Boolean do/don't do it signal, explaining why
you may do exactly the wrong thing under stress.
Emotion are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. can be controlled
to some extent by thought. There are two strategies:
- Antecedent strategies work by thinking about something
else or reappraising the emotion as unreal with the aim of
activating the dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
to
dampen the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
and sympathetic nervous system. Placebos use antecedent reappraisal to stimulate the dlPFC which then inhibits the amygdala's pain response. work this
way. And this mechanism is leveraged in CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy. It was originally designed to treat depression. CBT leverages cognitive and behavioral principles to cope with behaviors, induced by prior conditioning, which cannot be managed directly with rational thoughts. Instead it assumes that one's relationship with maladaptive thinking and emotional bindings can be changed through antecedent strategies. CBT is problem focused and action oriented. Errors in thinking like: overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives, minimizing positives and catastrophizing are replaced with more realistic and effective thoughts. .
- Response-focused strategies where you aim to cope with the
emotions after they start occurring by thinking about
sitting still and breathing deeply. Sapolsky argues
this is not very effective since it increases the activity
of the amygdala.
Sapolsky argues the frontal cortex gets its metaphorical
motivation to do the harder thing from the brains dopaminergic
reward systems.
The
Mesolimbic/Mesocortical Dopamine System
Dopamine is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling: - Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
is central to Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
motivated pursuit of goals.
Sapolsky explains the best and the worst behaviors involve the
projections from the ventral
tegmentum is part of the tegmentum which contains dopamine long system cell bodies (high levels of D(2)). Their axons branch extensively and reach many areas including: Mesolimbic to the limbic system: amygdala, hippocampus; Tegmentostriatal to the nucleus accumbens, Mesocortical to the forebrain including the prefrontal cortex. The terminals are fairly evenly distributed through out layers 1 - 6. So dopamine can modulate input and output excitatory and inhibitory transmissions. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. The lateral ventral tegmental area is now known to be one of two large adrenergic pathways, along with the locus ceruleus. During child birth the ventral tegmentum deploys more oxytocin receptors increasing its sensitivity to the neuropeptide. to the:
- Mesolimbic
pathway includes projections between the tegmentum and the accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus;
to the accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression. ,
amygdala & hippocampus. The accumbens projects onto
areas associated with movement.
- Mesocortical
pathway includes projections between the tegmentum and the prefrontal cortex;
specifically targeting the prefrontal
cortex.
- Major return pathways from the amygdala and prefrontal
cortex project to the tegmentum & accumbens.
Social interactions are affected by dopamine rewards:
The Anticipation
of Reward
The dopamine is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling: - Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
network
architecture ensures once reward contingencies are learned
dopamine release is associated with anticipation. Mastery,
expectation & confidence of the result are rewarded until
the binding fails! The learning involves a circuit of
excited hippocampus is a part of the brain involved in the temporary storage or coding of long-term episodic memory. Memory formation in the cells of the hippocampus uses the MAP kinase signalling network which is impacted by sleep deprivation. The hippocampus dependent memory system is directly affected by cholinergic changes throughout the wake-sleep cycle. Increased acetylcholine during REM sleep promotes information attained during wakefulness to be stored in the hippocampus by suppressing previous excitatory connections while facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. During slow-wave sleep low levels of acetylcholine cause the release of the suppression and allow for spontaneous recovery of hippocampal neurons resulting in memory consolidation. It was initially associated with memory formation by McGill University's Dr. Brenda Milner, via studies of 'HM' Henry Molaison, whose medial temporal lobes had been surgically destroyed leaving him unable to create new memories. The size of neurons' dendritic trees expands and contracts over a female rat's ovulatory cycle, with the peak in size and cognitive skills at the estrogen high point. Adult neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus (3% of neurons are replaced each month) where the new neurons integrate into preexisting circuits. It is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injury and inhibited by various stressors explains Sapolsky. Prolonged stress makes the hippocampus atrophy. He notes the new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas -- learning that two things you thought were the same are actually different. amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
& frontal cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
projecting to
dopamine neurons. This ensures the return of
context-dependent cravings in addiction. And it means more
dopamine will be generated when the result becomes
uncertain.
University
of Michigan's Huda Akil showed reliable cues to an
impending reward eventually become rewarding. Rats
eventually enjoy the cue. This is the foundation of
fetishes.
Crucially dopamine binds the value of a reward to the strategic
action that attains the result. This is implemented in the
dopaminergic projections to the PFC is prefrontal cortex which is:
- The front part of the frontal
lobe of the cerebral
cortex. It evolved
most recently. During adolescence
when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent
strategies: ventral
striatum. The PFC has been implicated in
planning, working memory:
dorsolateral;
decision making: Orbitofrontal
cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC
circuits track internal reward
driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The
PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or
restraint, especially between cognition
and emotions. It imposes
an overarching strategy for managing working memory.
It is essential for thinking about multiple items with
different labels. It includes neurons that are
interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat.
Once it has made a decision it signals
the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease
excitability of the PFC.
which decides on the strategy to execute.
Dopamine still operates effectively when the work is prolonged
and the reward is delayed. To maintain the action a second
gradual increase in dopamine occurs. The increase is a
function of the length of the delay and the anticipated size of
the reward. The level of the increase in dopamine is
controlled by the accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression.
while dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
& vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
neurons assess the time
delay. A flexible arrangement that supports delayed
gratification. Differences in the volume of these
different agents in different people results in the variations
in effectiveness of performing delayed gratification.
Sapalsky adds that humans can delay gratification for huge
amounts of time in pursuit of abstract goals. It has not
yet been determined exactly how this is done.
A Final Small Topic: Serotonin
Sapolsky notes that serotonin is a neurotransmitter. it is: - Inversely associated with: human impulsive, cricket, mollusk, crustacean; aggression. Low levels of serotonin are associated with impulsive aggression ranging from psychological measures of hostility to overt violence and cognitive impulsivity and impulsive suicide.
- Nearly all synthesized in the Raphe nucleus. Tryptophan hydroxylase makes serotonin from the amino-acid tryptophan. Monoamine oxidase degrades serotonin. The serotonin receptor binds serotonin to initiate cross membrane signalling. The serotonin transporter actively removes serotonin from synapses. Reuptake is inhibited by SSRIs. Variants of the genes coding for these various enzymes alter the strength of their effects.
- Increasing serotonin signalling does not lessen impulsiveness in normal subjects but did in those prone to impulsivity. However, such experiments are fraught with complexity:
- Transient changes induced by drugs may adjust the immediate levels of serotonin but may not demonstrate structural effects.
- Gene variants likely produce structural changes in the developing brain.
- Effects monitored in experiments are often tiny.
- Behavioral changes: Violence, Arson, Exhibitionism; seen in different test subjects may be difficult to compare.
- Monoamine oxidase has high gene/environment interactions undermining heritability estimates. Its gene promotor is regulated by stress and glucocorticoids. So non genetic factors such as childhood adversity and adult provocation appear to be significant.
effects impulsivity. The raphe
nucleus consists of a group of nuclei running through the core of the brain stem from the medulla to the back of the midbrain. It projects to the tegmentum, accumbens, prefrontal cortex, & amygdala where serotonin enhances dopamine's effects on goal-directed behavior. The raphe is associated with: - Neural mechanisms of sleep and waking. Jouvet and Renault produced large lesions that destroyed 80 - 90 % of the raphe in cats inducing complete insomnia for 3-4 days. Slow-wave, but not REM sleep, gradually returned, but never exceeded 2.5 hours a day. Sleep amount correlates to the 5-HT concentration. The neurons of the raphe nuclei are rich in serotonin (5-HT). It is suspected that the dorsal raphe nuclei inhibit the phasic components of REM sleep and thus prevent them from occurring at inappropriate times. The activity of serotonergic neurons is low during REM sleep and higher at other times. The dorsal raphe nucleus has been associated with
- Depression.
- Impulsive aggression which is associated with relatively low serotonin levels.
projects serotonin signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. to the tegmentum is involved in homeostatic and reflex pathways in the brain. It includes: ventral; areas. It forms the base of the midbrain. It projects via the: mesolimbic dopamine pathway to limbic structures, mesocortical dopamine pathway to the prefrontal cortex. Sapolsky explains that Wolfram Schultz demonstrated that following a reward, the dopamine system codes for discrepancy from expectation--get what you expected, and there's a steady-state dribble of dopamine. Get more reward and/or get it sooner than expected, and there's a big burst; less and or later a decrease. Some tegmental neurons respond to positive discrepancy from expectation, others to negative; appropriately, the latter are local neurons that release inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. Those same neurons participate in habituation, where the reward that once elicited a big dopamine response becomes less exciting. These coding neurons get projections from the frontal cortex where the expectancy/discrepancy calculations occur. , accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression. , prefrontal cortex (PFC) is - The front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. It evolved most recently. During adolescence when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent strategies: ventral striatum. The PFC has been implicated in planning, working memory: dorsolateral; decision making: Orbitofrontal cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC circuits track internal reward driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or restraint, especially between cognition and emotions. It imposes an overarching strategy for managing working memory. It is essential for thinking about multiple items with different labels. It includes neurons that are interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat. Once it has made a decision it signals the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease excitability of the PFC.
and amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
where the
serotonin enhances dopamine is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling: - Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
's
Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
effects on goal-directed behavior.
Seconds to minutes
before
Having reviewed what the nervous
system was doing to generate our best and worst behaviors
Sapolsky now aims to explore:
- What outside stimulus, acting through what sensory channel
and targeting which parts of the brain, prompted this
behavior?
- Were you aware of that environmental stimulus?
- What stimuli had your brain made you particularly
sensitive to?
- What does this tell us about our best and worst behaviors?
Huge variety of external and internal cues impact behavior and
many of these signals are subliminal. This makes us less rational and
autonomous decision makers than we typically assume.
Sapolsky repeats that an animal's dominant sensory channel has
the most direct access to the limbic system supports emotional circuits: Amygdala, Hippocampus, Septum, Habenula, Mammillary bodies; all of which signals the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The broad interconnections of these regions with a part of the frontal lobe suggested to Walle Nauta that it (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) is a quasi-member of the limbic network. .
And he stresses that subliminal sensory cues are hugely
significant.
Pertinent to our best and worst behaviors our brains are highly
attuned to skin color, noting within a hundred milliseconds:
- Amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala:
- Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
activation
and more so in someone who tests positive for race bias
- Fusiform is a region of the brain which supports advanced mechanisms of shape recognition and implements the early stages of reading. Subliminal priming with words did not depend on the shape of the word. The fusiform gyrus was able to process the abstract identity of a word without caring if it was upper or lower case. While high up in the cortex it can operate below the level of conscious experience. It contributes to social emotions with:
- Its face area being more activated by faces with in-group skin color.
- It activating when shown pictures of cars in automobile aficionados.
- It activating when shown pictures of birds in birdwatchers; since it really recognizes examples of items from an individual's emotionally salient categories.
face
area is less activated by other-race faces.
The medial
prefrontal cortex in Buckner's fMRI based analysis is part of the brain's default mode network. It facilitates the flexible use of information during the construction of self-relevant mental simulations. Nauta considered its ventromedial part as participating in the limbic system. With the medial temporal lobe it converges on important integration nodes: posterior cingulate cortex. differentially activates when
considering misfortune to members of one's own race.
Eyes are major sensors in primates, based on opsins deployed in the retina & especially fovea, signalling the visual system: Superior colliculi, Thalamus (LGN), Primary visual cortex; and indirectly the amygdala. They also signal [social] emotional state to other people. And they have implicit censorious power with pictures of eyes encouraging people within their view to act more honorably. Eyes are poor scanners and use a saccade to present detail slowly to the fovea. The eye's optical structures and retina are supported by RPE. Eyes do not connect to the brain through the brain stem and so still operate in locked-in syndrome. Evo-devo shows eyes have deep homology. High pressure within the eye can result in glaucoma. Genetic inheritance can result in retinoblastoma. Age is associated with AMD. and then faces present
the most significant subliminal signals for watching
humans. Emotion are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. is
discerned primarily from the eyes.
Subliminal auditory cues also alter behavior in a racially
biased way.
Subliminal smell is still significant in humans. The
olfactory network directly projects to the limbic system:
- Inhaled sweat produced while terrified is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amydala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala.
causes
activation of the amygdala, increased startle response and
improved detection of subliminal angry is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. faces. When
people around you smell scared is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amydala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala.
your brain will be more likely to become scared too.
- Smelling garbage makes people more conservative
about social issues.
Beauty is accepted
cross-culturally is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
, and from
an early age, as indicating, through the medial orbitofrontal
cortex is a rich club hub region of the prefrontal cortex, involved in representing emotion & reward in decision-making. It is positioned immediately above the orbits where the eyes sit. The medial part judges the beauty of faces, minds and acts and will conflate them in social emotion evaluations. The orbitofrontal cortex receives projections from the: hippocampus & associated areas of the cingulate, retrosplenial & entorhinal cortices, anterior thalamus, amygdala, midline thalamus, non-isocortical insula, mediodorsal thalamus. , smarter, kinder & more honest people.
Body posture is rapidly analyzed, signalling, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. social status is a publically accepted, signal that one possesses assets: wealth, beauty, talent, expertise, access & trust of powerful people; to be able to help others. & dominance signals the power to hurt a rival. Maynard Smith & Parker explain that in group situations females compete for food and males compete for females. Maleness is a huge factor for violence. Fighting to the death is costly for all participants so instead they indicate: - Size and weapons to demonstrate who will win. Males who are, or look like, better fighters: Large heads, Big men, Height; gain in dominance.
- Political acumen to demonstrate they won't be pushed around and have the support of other powerful groups. Dominant males push other rivals aside and gain interest of females, enabling themselves to replicate more. Being a signal its authenticity can be challenged and so must be defended to remain credible. Hotheads leverage the doomsday machine to constrain rational challenges. Bands and cultures leverage honor. Youth and lack of resources reduce the power of rivals' political constraints.
helping support stable
social hierarchies.
Interoceptive
signals indicate the body's internal state: Pain, Fatigue; seconds to minutes before. The interoceptive 'networks' project to brain regions that implement social emotions. also influence our behaviors. Sapolsky notes
evidence supporting the James-Lange theory developed by William James & Carl Lange who, independently proposed that humans decide how they feel based on interoceptive signals, rather than from external ones. Sapolsky notes the theory reflects these signals influence on behavior where social emotion processing areas receive lots of projections from interoceptive networks. The most notable is pain. But he writes it fails to support specificity or speed of reactions since autonomic responses are too slow to precede awareness of an emotion. ,
that these internal feelings shape your interpretation of
external signals and your emotions. But he notes issues of
specificity and speed that make these influences rather than
determinants of emotions.
Words have significant behavioral influence. Subliminal prime flashes a subliminal word or picture, the prime, immediately before another visible item, the target. Experiments demonstrate that the presence of the subliminal prime speeds up conscious processing when the prime is represented consciously within a second of the initial showing.
words shift behavior to be more or less prosocial is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act. . Kahneman
& Tversky showed word framing related to gain or loss is processed differently in decision making. Kahneman & Tversky asked participants in an experiment, including doctors, to decide whether to administer a hypothetical drug. When to the drug: - Has a 95 percent survival rate, the participants were more likely to approve its use than if it
- Has a 5 percent death rate.
can alter
decision making.
Symbols: National flag, Team shirt; also influence
behavior. Cues about group identity demonstrate the
complex nature of the signal processing. Asian American
women primed to think about racial identity performed better in
a mathematics test than those primed to think about
gender. Sapolsky notes that their assumptions about
females struggling at mathematics depend on cultural influences.
When women are present, or men are prompted to think about
women, men increase their risk-taking, spend more on luxuries
that signal status, and act more aggressively. Except when
men's status has been achieved prosocially in which case the
presence of women makes the men more prosocial.
The physical environment also signals changes in behavior: Broken windows is a 1982 crime theory of James Wilson and George Kelling, that was inspired by the results of vandalism experiments by Philip Zimbardo, which assumes urban disorder and vandalism undermine social constraints and encourage additional criminal and anti-social behavior. By detecting and responding to petty vandalism rapidly it is assumed that more serious crime will be discouraged. In New York Broken Windows was used to justify 'stop, question and frisk'. However, Donohue & Levitt's analysis suggests an observed precipitous drop in crime rates depended on legal access to abortion. ;
which encouraged zero-tolerance
policing in New York City resulting is reductions in
crime.
Sapolsky raises a complicating detail: the brain can Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information model. Signals can indicate decision summaries and level of
uncertainty.
alter the sensitivity of specific sensory
modalities making some signals more influential.
Examples include: Directional sensing, Stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
driven alterations,
Hunger based increases in sensitivity to smell of food.
There are more projections from the higher centers of the brain
back to the sensory networks allowing modulation of the sensors
operations. Such complex interactions result in
individuals from collectivist cultures looking at a
complicated picture with foreground and background details
differently to those from individualist cultures.
Hours to days before
This is the timescale where hormones are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy.
influence the brain regions
and sensory networks
discussed previously. The effects are mainly contingent
and facilitative increasing sensitivity to preexisting
tendencies setup over the longer term via adult neuroplasticity and adolescence and childhood and genetics
and proximate
environment including culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
.
Sapolsky's discusses testosterone is a hormone secreted by the testes in response to stimulation from the hypothalamic/pituitary/testicular cascade, that makes humans more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status, according to Sapolsky. That means players of the Ultimatum Game, if previously given testosterone can become more generous. Testosterones effect is highly socially contextual so it may encourage acts of kindness or aggression (when challenged). The level of testosterone does not predict which individuals will be aggressive in: Birds, Fish, Mammals including primates. Genes impact the potency of testosterone by altering the enzymes that: Construct it, Convert it to estrogen, code the androgen receptor. This androgen receptor includes a variable polyglutamine repeat which alters the sensitivity to the testosterone signal. The more potent form is associated with boys showing more dramatic 'masculinization' of the cortex. But the detected genetic influences are small. Testosterone decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex and its functional coupling to the amygdala while increasing the coupling between the amygdala & the thalamus. Testosterone shortens the refactory period of amygdaloid & amygdaloid target neurons. This results in impulsive risk taking and more focus on unfamiliar faces and distrust of them. Testosterone increases activity in the ventral tegmentum projecting dopamine to enhance place preference. Winners of fights become more willing to fight in part due to testosterone increasing confidence and optimism and reducing fear and anxiety. And winning at: Chess, Athletics, Stock trades; induces the BNST to add testosterone receptors increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. People become overconfident and overly optimistic.
which he asserts is far less relevant to aggression than has
been assumed and oxytocin is a peptide hormone which makes humans more prosocial to and socially competent in their in-group and more antisocial to everyone else. The effects are contingent; changing during stress and in the presence of a threatening outgroup. Oxytocin makes people look at eyes longer, encouraging improved accuracy at perceiving emotions. It enhances activity in the TPJ supporting modeling of other people's thinking. Dogs and their owners secrete oxytocin increasing the amount of eye contact between them. It is associated with pair bonding. It is central to female mammals wanting to nurse, nursing, and remembering their child. Its effects are context dependent and so is the regulation of the genes that control oxytocin. Variants of a gene CD38 which facilitates oxytocin secretion from neurons are associated with differing levels of activation of the fusiform face area when looking at faces. Sapolsky describes an oxytocin receptor gene variant that is associated with children showing: Extreme aggression, A callous unemotional style; foreshadowing adult psychopathy. And another receptor gene variant which is associated with childhood social disconnection and unstable adult relationships. Gene/environment interactions complicate the interpretation of the presence of particular gene variants. Hypothalamic neurons send projections to: ventral tegmentum which also becomes more receptive during child birth, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, amygdala where it inhibits the central amygdala suppressing fear & anxiety consistently in men while still allowing women to respond to threats to their infants, frontal cortex, olfactory network where it helps new rat mums to learn the smell of their offspring; where oxytocin prepares the brain for in-group bonding, out-grouping, birth and maternal behavior. Outside the brain hypothalamic neurons in females send oxytocin to the posterior pituitary where it enters the blood stream stimulating uterine contraction during labor & supporting milk production for weaning. Disorders associated with oxytocin abnormalities include ASD.
that is not as prosocial is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act.
as often claimed.
Males have more testosterone and are more aggressive but
Sapolsky notes that aggression occurs even when castration has
removed testosterone from males. Sapolsky concludes
aggression is typically more about social learning than
testosterone. We reward aggression too often.
Testosterone has effects but they are hugely context dependent
and typically amplify preexisting tendencies. Testosterone
boosts impulsivity, risk taking and feeling good from such
activities. It also makes winning a fight feel good.
And it supports the formation of a dominance
hierarchy and encourages us to maintain status is a publically accepted, signal that one possesses assets: wealth, beauty, talent, expertise, access & trust of powerful people; to be able to help others. . Only during a
challenge does an increases in testosterone make aggression more
likely. When a person's pride depends on being prosocial
rising testosterone will increase acts of kindness.
Oxytocin became interesting to neurobiologists when it was
realized the hypothalamic is essential to many operations of the body. It has many small sub-regions whose main functions are to regulate hunger, thirst, temperature, sexual behavior, and similar body operations. Its (paraventricular nucleus) is closely connected to the pituitary which secrets hormones into the bloodstream ( => acth -> adrenal cortex => cortisol (+)-> amygdala & (-)-> hippocampus).
neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
that sent axons, a long extension of a neuron which has a membrane constructed to support the uni-directional flow of action potential from the dendritic tree and cell body to the synaptic terminals. to the posterior
pituitary also sent projections throughout the brain, including
to the: ventral
tegmentum is part of the tegmentum which contains dopamine long system cell bodies (high levels of D(2)). Their axons branch extensively and reach many areas including: Mesolimbic to the limbic system: amygdala, hippocampus; Tegmentostriatal to the nucleus accumbens, Mesocortical to the forebrain including the prefrontal cortex. The terminals are fairly evenly distributed through out layers 1 - 6. So dopamine can modulate input and output excitatory and inhibitory transmissions. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. The lateral ventral tegmental area is now known to be one of two large adrenergic pathways, along with the locus ceruleus. During child birth the ventral tegmentum deploys more oxytocin receptors increasing its sensitivity to the neuropeptide. , accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression. ,
hippocampus is a part of the brain involved in the temporary storage or coding of long-term episodic memory. Memory formation in the cells of the hippocampus uses the MAP kinase signalling network which is impacted by sleep deprivation. The hippocampus dependent memory system is directly affected by cholinergic changes throughout the wake-sleep cycle. Increased acetylcholine during REM sleep promotes information attained during wakefulness to be stored in the hippocampus by suppressing previous excitatory connections while facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. During slow-wave sleep low levels of acetylcholine cause the release of the suppression and allow for spontaneous recovery of hippocampal neurons resulting in memory consolidation. It was initially associated with memory formation by McGill University's Dr. Brenda Milner, via studies of 'HM' Henry Molaison, whose medial temporal lobes had been surgically destroyed leaving him unable to create new memories. The size of neurons' dendritic trees expands and contracts over a female rat's ovulatory cycle, with the peak in size and cognitive skills at the estrogen high point. Adult neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus (3% of neurons are replaced each month) where the new neurons integrate into preexisting circuits. It is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injury and inhibited by various stressors explains Sapolsky. Prolonged stress makes the hippocampus atrophy. He notes the new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas -- learning that two things you thought were the same are actually different. , amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
& frontal cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. .
Maternal behaviors are induced by oxytocin and its production is
boosted during birth by the hypothalamus. And the ventral
tegmentum increases its sensitivity to oxytocin by increasing
the volume of receptors, in biological cells these proteins are able to span the cell membrane and present an active site which is tailored to interact with a specific signal. When the receptor pairs with its signal, its overall shape changes resulting in changes in the part internal to the cell which can be relayed by the cells signalling infrastructure. In neuron synapses one type of receptor (fast) is associated with an ion channel. The other (slow) is associated with a signalling enzyme chain and modulates the neuron's response. .
In rats olfactory stimulation ensures the new mum learns the
smell of her offspring.
The male analog vasopressin developed by duplication and subsequent mutation of the vasotocin gene, along with oxytocin, during the initial formation of mammals. It acts as a hormone regulating water retention in the kidneys. It supports paternal behavior stimulated by a female giving birth. Sex releases vasopressin in the nucleus accumbens of male prairie voles. And prairie voles have more receptors in the accumbens than other voles supporting their pair bonding. This situation is similar in bonobos relative to chimps where it encourages social bonding - but not monogamy. Vasopressin is made in hypothalamic neurons which project to the posterior pituitary for release as a hormone. It is also a neuropeptide transmitting from hypothalamic projections to the ventral tegmentum, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, amygdala, and frontal cortex. And it is made & secreted in other areas of the brain. Vasopressin enhances aggression in paternal prairie vole males. But the aggression is then maintained by social learning.
supported paternal behavior. Vasopressin receptor levels
increase in the male's brain when the female gives birth.
Oxytocin was also found to support pair bonding is an increase in the strength of relationship between parents and parents and children in some species: prairie voles, bonobos - not monogamous, and humans. NIMH's Thomas Insel, Emory's Larry Young & Illinois's Sue Carter's research highlighted prairie voles, where pair-bonding is enabled by a genetic difference from montane voles in the operon controlling generation of the vasopressin receptor. Oxytocin is associated with pair bonding. There are: Higher levels of receptors in males (vasopressin) having lots of sex and in females (oxytocin) performing grooming & physical contact, Sex releases oxytocin in the nucleus accumbens of female prairie voles. Such pair-bonded males are less interested in other females. Insel, Young & Carter engineered: (1) Male mice brains to express the prairie vole version of the vasopressin receptor in their brains resulting in grooming and huddling with familiar females. (2) Male montane vole brains to add vasopressin receptors to the nucleus accumbens resulting in their being more socially affiliative with individual females. .
And by inhibiting the central amygdala is a relatively ancient evolved part of the amygdala which processes 'innate' fears. It projects to the BNST to raise the heart rate and blood pressure in preparation for fight and flight.
it suppresses fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amydala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. and anxiety is manifested in the amygdala mediating inhibition of dopamine rewards. Major anxiety results in elevated glucocorticoids and reduces hippocampal dendrite & spine density. Some estrogen receptor variants are associated with anxiety in women. . Except when
a mother has to defend her babies where the central amygdala's
instinctual fear supports oxytocin stimulated enhanced
aggression.
Oxytocin
supports prosocial capabilities improving detection of happy
faces and socially positive words. It makes people study
eyes for longer improving accuracy of reading emotions. In
a social-recognition-task it increases activity in the TPJ is the temporoparietal juncture: left, right; where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, an area of the cortex with projections from the thalamus, limbic system, visual, auditory and somatosensory networks. It supports modeling of self and others. enhancing ideas about what
other people are thinking. But oxytocin decreases
cooperation with strangers. It helps us identify who is an
Us. Abnormalities in the
oxytocin vasopressin network are associated with ASD is autism spectrum disorder. People who suffer from ASD show a reduced fusiform response to faces. ASD is linked to gene variants affecting oxytocin and vasopressin, to nongenetic mechanisms that silence the oxytocin receptor gene and to lower levels of the receptor itself. .
Oxytocin has contingent effects: It makes charitable people more
charitable, Seeking social support occurred more when the
subjects were from individual
cultures, with a specific
receptor variant & under stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
. The actions of
oxytocin & vasopressin depend on context: who you are, your
environment, who they are. Sapolsky notes that is also
true for the regulation
of the genes for these peptides.
The endocrinology of Aggression in females
Sapolsky explains that this subject confuses him:
Maternal Aggression
Typically females increase aggression during pregnancy.
The increase is most significant in species with significant
amounts of infanticide.
In:
- Rats, during late pregnancy, estrogen is a generic term for a number of related steroid hormones each of which works differently. Estrogen:
- Contributes to maternal aggression but it can reduce aggression and enhance empathy, depending on brain state. There are two different estrogen receptor types which mediate these conflicting effects. The levels of each type of receptor is independently regulated. Different receptor variants are associated with:
- Higher rates of anxiety among women
- Higher rates of antisocial behavior and conduct disorder in men
& progesterone is a steroid hormone. It: - Rarely directly effects areas of the brain. Instead it is converted into other sterioids which have different actions in different brain areas.
- Increases maternal aggression in concert with estrogen by increasing oxytocin release in certain brain regions. However, on its own progresterone decreases aggression and anxiety. It decreases anxiety by entering neurons where it is converted to allopregnanolone which binds to GABA receptors increasing their sensitivity to GABA.
increase maternal
aggression supports protection of newborns especially in breeds with high risks of infanticide. During late pregnancy, estrogen and progesterone increase maternal aggression by increasing oxytocin release in the brain. This outcome reflects the specific late pregnancy brain state and presence of both estrogen and progesterone. by increasing oxytocin is a peptide hormone which makes humans more prosocial to and socially competent in their in-group and more antisocial to everyone else. The effects are contingent; changing during stress and in the presence of a threatening outgroup. Oxytocin makes people look at eyes longer, encouraging improved accuracy at perceiving emotions. It enhances activity in the TPJ supporting modeling of other people's thinking. Dogs and their owners secrete oxytocin increasing the amount of eye contact between them. It is associated with pair bonding. It is central to female mammals wanting to nurse, nursing, and remembering their child. Its effects are context dependent and so is the regulation of the genes that control oxytocin. Variants of a gene CD38 which facilitates oxytocin secretion from neurons are associated with differing levels of activation of the fusiform face area when looking at faces. Sapolsky describes an oxytocin receptor gene variant that is associated with children showing: Extreme aggression, A callous unemotional style; foreshadowing adult psychopathy. And another receptor gene variant which is associated with childhood social disconnection and unstable adult relationships. Gene/environment interactions complicate the interpretation of the presence of particular gene variants. Hypothalamic neurons send projections to: ventral tegmentum which also becomes more receptive during child birth, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, amygdala where it inhibits the central amygdala suppressing fear & anxiety consistently in men while still allowing women to respond to threats to their infants, frontal cortex, olfactory network where it helps new rat mums to learn the smell of their offspring; where oxytocin prepares the brain for in-group bonding, out-grouping, birth and maternal behavior. Outside the brain hypothalamic neurons in females send oxytocin to the posterior pituitary where it enters the blood stream stimulating uterine contraction during labor & supporting milk production for weaning. Disorders associated with oxytocin abnormalities include ASD. release in
regions of the brain. Two different estrogen receptors, in biological cells these proteins are able to span the cell membrane and present an active site which is tailored to interact with a specific signal. When the receptor pairs with its signal, its overall shape changes resulting in changes in the part internal to the cell which can be relayed by the cells signalling infrastructure. In neuron synapses one type of receptor (fast) is associated with an ion channel. The other (slow) is associated with a signalling enzyme chain and modulates the neuron's response. help allow
estrogen to increase maternal aggression or reduce
aggression and enhance empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy.
and emotional recognition. The receptor levels are
independently regulated allowing the brain to be
configured differently and so respond to the same hormone are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy. signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. in different
ways depending on longer-term context. Progesterone
alone decreases aggression and anxiety.
Bare-Knuckled Female Aggression
While non-maternal female competition is typically assumed to be
passive and covert, Sapolsky asserts this is mistaken because:
Perimenstrual aggression and irritability
PMS is premenstrual syndrome associated with: negative mood, irritability, bloating cramps, acne; immediately prior to menstruation. It occurs in various species. Its symptoms vary by culture. There is little evidence of an association with aggression. and PMDD is premenstrual dysphoric disorder which affects 2 to 5% of women impairing their normal functioning. studies have not
identified an association with aggression.
Stress and imprudent brain function
Sapolsky notes the dilemma that important, consequential
behaviors can be stressed situations and stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
often impacts
decision making. Sight of a large carnivore is detected in
the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
which:
- Signals the brain-stem includes: medulla, raphe, pons, substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, pituitary, superior colliculi, cerebellum, thalamus (LGN), basal ganglia including caudate nucleus and striatum; amygdala, hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens;
to switch over to the sympathetic nervous system releasing
epinephrine & norepinephrine.
- Mediates the PVN is a part of the hypothalamus which projects to the pituitary secreting:
- CRH which triggers the pituatory to release ACTH.
- Oxytocin
- Vasopressin
which causes glucocorticoid are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017).
release; postponing long term activities and turning on Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents that will help cope with
the immediate threat. Perfect responses for a zebra or
lion. But not for recently evolved primates who can
get stressed just by thinking about a stressful event.
The stress response remains on for problematically long
periods, altering
judgement, executive function and sociality is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
.
Sapolsky notes how we love stress in benevolent, mild, transient
amounts. In these situations the levels of glucocorticoids
secreted stimulates production of dopamine is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling: - Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
based Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
rewards.
Some important debunking: Alcohol
Sapolsky notes alcohols impact on judgement. But he writes
it does not cause everyone to become aggressive. Instead
people prone to aggression do become aggressive as do people who
believe alcohol makes you aggressive. That second
situation demonstrates social learnings power to shape
biology.
Days to Months Before
Any behavior was produced in prior
seconds by the nervous system based on sensory cues minutes to hours before
with the brain's sensitivity adjusted by hormones are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy. in the previous hours and days. But in
the prior days to months enormous changes
occurred is lasting change to the brain that occurs throughout life. It is also termed neural plasticity. The changes include:
- The strength of dendritic input alters due to genetic,
neural and hormonal signals
- Hebb notes that memories
require strengthening of preexisting synapses. Glutamate
responsive neurons' post
synaptic dendritic spines have two types of receptor:
non-NMDA and NMDA.
NMDA channels are responsible for this strengthening
mechanism. LTP then occurs
to prolong the increase in excitability of the
synapse.
- The LTP operation results in calcium diffusion which
triggers new spine formation in adjacent parts of the
dendrite. Eventually that can stimulate dentrite
growth enabling more neurons to connect.
- Short term stress promotes hippocampal
LTP.
- Sustained stress promotes:
- Hippocampal & frontal
cortex LTD &
suppresses LTP. Subsequent reductions in NCAM then reduce dendrite and
synapse density.
- Amygdala LTP and
suppresses LTD boosting fear
conditioning. It increases BDNF
levels and expands dendrites in the BLA.
- Depression and anxiety reduce hippocampal
dendrite and spine number by reducing BDNF.
- The axon's conditions for
- Initiating an action
potential.
- Progesterone boosts GABA-ergic neurons response to GABA
decreasing the excitability of other neurons over a
period of hours.
- Duration of a neuron's
refractory period. Testosterone
shortens the refractory period of amygdala and amygdala target
neurons over a period of hours.
- Synaptic connections being
constantly removed and recreated
- Synapses being created or destroyed. Stimulation
generates additional dendritic spines which become
associated with a nearby axon terminal and within weeks a
synapse forms. The synapse then contributes calcium
diffusion through LTP triggering more spine
formation. When dendritic spines recede synapses
disappear.
- Cortical maps change to reflect alterations in the
inputs and outputs from the body.
- Birth of brain cells in many areas of adult brains: the
hippocampus (where 3% are
replaced each month) and olfactory bulb and lesser amounts
in the cortex.
- Restructuring after brain damage including axonal plasticity.
Distant rerouting of axons is observed but no mechanism
has been identified yet.
- Vision is plastic in predators, where the eyes are moved
during final development. Dehaene
argues for neuronal
recycling supporting reading.
in the brain's structure (neuroplasticity)
including:
- LTP is long term potentiation which is the increasing excitability of a neural connection which persists over time. It:
- Includes a mechanism in the hippocampus
that leverages the architecture of NMDA channels. Sapolsky
explains "that when NMDA receptors
finally activate and open their channels, it is calcium,
rather than sodium, that flows in. This causes an
array of changes; here are a few:
- The calcium tidal wave causes more copies of glutamate
receptors to be inserted into the dendritic spin's membrane, making the neuron more responsive to
glutamate thereafter.
- The calcium also alters glutamate receptors that are
already on the front lines of that dendritic spine; each
will now be more sensitive to glutamate signals.
- The calcium also causes the synthesis of peculiar
neurotransmitters in the dendritic spine, which are
released and travel backward across the synapse; there they increase
the amount of glutamate released from the axon terminal after future action potentials."
- Spine number and branch length in the hippocampus and frontal cortex are increased
by estrogen.
- Is affected by stress hormones: glucocorticoids; which
act differently on the hippocampus & amygdala and
- Initially promote hippocampal LTP but under sustained
conditions disrupt LTP and promote LTD.
- Under sustained conditions in the amygdala increases BDNF levels and expands dendrites
in the BLA & BNST.
- Must further persist beyond the life of a particular synapse. Additional
mechanisms ensure this happens over days, months and
years.
- Is also implemented by new synapse formation based
strategies. Calcium flowing into the spine diffuses
and triggers the formation of a new spine near the current
LTP.
- Occurs throughout the neuronal network:
- Fear conditioning leverages synaptic LTP in the
BLA.
- Dopamine networks
use it to associate stimuli with rewards.
of NMDA calcium channels is a synaptic channel which is sensitive to voltage and to the signals glutamate and its relative N-methyl-D-aspartate. It rarely opens to glutamate unless the membrane potential becomes less negative than at rest. That may be due to the action of other receptors nearby. When the channel opens it allows in calcium ions which alter the strength of the synapse for days, weeks, months or longer. That may be the basis of a form of memory. If NMDA channels are chemically inactivated in a rat's hippocampus, the rat cannot remember where it has been.
mediating neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
learning in the: hippocampus is a part of the brain involved in the temporary storage or coding of long-term episodic memory. Memory formation in the cells of the hippocampus uses the MAP kinase signalling network which is impacted by sleep deprivation. The hippocampus dependent memory system is directly affected by cholinergic changes throughout the wake-sleep cycle. Increased acetylcholine during REM sleep promotes information attained during wakefulness to be stored in the hippocampus by suppressing previous excitatory connections while facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. During slow-wave sleep low levels of acetylcholine cause the release of the suppression and allow for spontaneous recovery of hippocampal neurons resulting in memory consolidation. It was initially associated with memory formation by McGill University's Dr. Brenda Milner, via studies of 'HM' Henry Molaison, whose medial temporal lobes had been surgically destroyed leaving him unable to create new memories. The size of neurons' dendritic trees expands and contracts over a female rat's ovulatory cycle, with the peak in size and cognitive skills at the estrogen high point. Adult neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus (3% of neurons are replaced each month) where the new neurons integrate into preexisting circuits. It is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injury and inhibited by various stressors explains Sapolsky. Prolonged stress makes the hippocampus atrophy. He notes the new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas -- learning that two things you thought were the same are actually different. ,
BLA is the basolateral amygdala, a relatively recently evolved part of the amygdala which learns stimuli to fear and then signals the central amygdala. It recieves inputs from all sensory networks. Some are fast pathways that allow the BLA to detect and respond when the sensory cortex is unaware. But it is far less accurate than the cortex. The BLA's learning involves increased excitability of synapses coupling the BLA and central amygdala. This is due to gene driven: Increased levels of growth factors promoting new connections, more receptors for excitatory neurotransmitters in dendritic spines. The BLA also responds to signals from the frontal cortex that a stimulus no longer appears frightening. This subset of BLA cells respond inhibiting the associating subset. Stress and glucocorticoids increase levels of CRH and BDNF encouraging the building of new dendrites and synapses. , Frontal cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. , Dopaminergic
networks are categorized anatomically into three key types: - Ultra-short systems,
- Intermediate length systems,
- Long systems.
association of a stimulus and a reward; that
Sapolsky is interested in.
- LTD is long term depression which is an experience dependent, long-term decrease in synaptic excitability. It:
- Sharpens a signal by erasing what's extraneous comments
Sapolsky.
provides
compensation for LTP and can enhance it by removing any
extraneous signal rather than forgetting the
LTP. And
- Moderate stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis.
- The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
promotes hippocampal LTP while sustained stress disrupts
hippocampal, and frontal cortex, LTP and promotes LTD.
In the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
sustained stress and glucocorticoids are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017).
enhance LTP and suppress LTD resulting in enhanced fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amydala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. conditioning.
- Against the wishes of the establishment figures of
neuroscience, adult brains make new neurons. Sapolsky
wonders why there was so much push back.
The realization that the brain is able to change throughout its
existence introduces reason for optimism in how all of us can
behave.
The mechanisms of memory in the brain includes functionally different types: Declarative (episodic and semantic), Implicit, Procedural, Spatial, Temporal, Verbal; Hebb noted that glutamate receptive neurons learn by (NMDA channel based) synaptic strengthening. This strengthening is sustained by subsequent LTP. The non-realtime learning and planning processes operate through consciousness using the working memory structures, and then via sleep, the salient ones are consolidated while the rest are destroyed and garbage collected.
formation and neural
plasticity refers to lasting changes to the brain that occur throughout the life span of the organism. Many aspects of the brain can be altered into adulthood. Almost anything in the nervous system can change in response to sustained stimulus. And in a different environment the changes will often reverse. The changes include: - The strength of dendritic input alters due to genetic, neural and hormonal signals
- Hebb notes that memories require strengthening of preexisting synapses. Glutamate responsive neurons' post synaptic dendritic spines have two types of receptor: non-NMDA and NMDA. NMDA channels are responsible for this strengthening mechanism. LTP then occurs to prolong the increase in excitability of the synapse.
- The LTP operation results in calcium diffusion which triggers new spine formation in adjacent parts of the dendrite. Eventually that can stimulate dentrite growth enabling more neurons to connect.
- Short term stress promotes hippocampal LTP.
- Sustained stress promotes:
- Hippocampal & frontal cortex LTD & suppresses LTP. Subsequent reductions in NCAM then reduce dendrite and synapse density.
- Amygdala LTP and suppresses LTD boosting fear conditioning. It increases BDNF levels and expands dendrites in the BLA.
- Depression and anxiety reduce hippocampal dendrite and spine number by reducing BDNF.
- The axon's conditions for
- Initiating an action potential.
- Progesterone boosts GABA-ergic neurons response to GABA decreasing the excitability of other neurons over a period of hours.
- Duration of a neuron's refractory period. Testosterone shortens the refractory period of amygdala and amygdala target neurons over a period of hours.
- Synaptic connections being constantly removed and recreated
- Synapses being created or destroyed. Stimulation generates additional dendritic spines which become associated with a nearby axon terminal and within weeks a synapse forms. The synapse then contributes calcium diffusion through LTP triggering more spine formation. When dendritic spines recede synapses disappear.
- Cortical maps change to reflect alterations in the inputs and outputs from the body.
- Birth of brain cells in many areas of adult brains: the hippocampus (where 3% are replaced each month) and olfactory bulb and lesser amounts in the cortex.
- Restructuring after brain damage including axonal plasticity. Distant rerouting of axons is observed but no mechanism has been identified yet.
- Vision is plastic in predators, where the eyes are moved during final development. Dehaene argues for neuronal recycling supporting reading.
are flexible and reversible in different
environments:
- Synapses, a neuron structure which provides a junction with other neurons. It generates signal molecules, either excitatory or inhibitory, which are kept in vesicles until the synapse is stimulated when the signal molecules are released across the synaptic cleft from the neuron. The provisioning of synapses is under genetic control and is part of long term memory formation as identified by Eric Kandel. Modulation signals (from slow receptors) initiate the synaptic strengthening which occurs in memory.
are created
as well as strengthened throughout the brain. LTP
generates a wave of calcium which enables
"activity-dependent synaptogenesis."
- As more synapses form the dendritic tree expands allowing
for more neurons to connect. Moderate stress increases
dendritic spine numbers in the hippocampus.
- Sustained stress and glucocorticoids reduce dendritic
spines in the hippocampus. And they cause dendritic
retraction, synapse loss, less synapse stabilizing NCAM is neural cell adhesion molecule which stabilizes synapses. , and less glutamate
release into the frontal cortex. These changes
correspond to attentional and decision-making
impairments. The nucleus accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression.
becomes depleted of dopamine is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling:
- Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
,
biasing rats to social subordination. The same
depletion causes humans to become depressed is a debilitating state which is facilitated by genetic predisposition - for example genes coding for relatively low serotonin levels; and an accumulation of traumatic events. There is evidence of shifts in the sleep/wake cycle in affected individuals (Dec 2015). The affected person will experience a pathological sense of loss of control, prolonged sadness, irritability, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and inability to experience pleasure. It affects 12% of men and 20% of women. It appears to be associated with androgen deprivation therapy treatment for prostate cancer (Apr 2016). Chronic stress depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine, biasing humans towards depression. Depression easily leads to following unhealthy pathways: drinking, overeating; which increase the risk of heart disease. It has been associated with an aging related B12 deficiency (Sep 2016). During depression, stress mediates inhibition of dopamine signalling. There is an association between depression and particular brain regions: Hippocampal dendrite and spine number reductions, Dorsal raphe nucleus linked to loneliness, Abnormalities of the ACC. Childhood adversity can increase depression risk by linking recollections of uncontrollable situations to overgeneralizations that life will always be terrible and uncontrollable. Treatments include: CBT, UMHS depression management. As of 2010 drug treatments take weeks to facilitate a response & many patients do not respond to the first drug applied, often prolonging the agony. Genomic predictions of which treatment will be effective have not been possible because: Not all clinical depressions are the same, a standard definition of drug response is difficult;.
- Axon, a long extension of a neuron which has a membrane constructed to support the uni-directional flow of action potential from the dendritic tree and cell body to the synaptic terminals. offshoots provide
further plasticity is where axons generate projections that head off in novel directions. A notable example involves blind people reading Braille where typical tactile cortex activation is accompanied by activation of the visual cortex. Injuries to the nervous system can produce similar remapping as axons that have lost contact with targets because the targets were previously destroyed, search for other active neurons to synapse with in neighboring parts of the cortex. The remapping of the axon's path results in waves of plasticity as the newly targeted neurons perform remapping too. Such remapping is seen when practicing a skill, such as learning to play a new song by repeated physical or mental activity.
functions.
- Sensory projection neurons can remap, causing waves of
further remapping downstream. It happens during
repeated practice and in tactile map of skin around nipples
of new mother rats.
Adolescence; Or,
Dude, Where's my Frontal Cortex?
Adolescence in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
is the
later part of the human development is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete.
phase where it generates different behaviors from young children
& adults. It reflects the slow maturation of the frontal cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. which
does not obtain its adult structure and function until the
mid-twenties. Sapolsky stresses the key implications:
- Adolescence shapes the frontal cortex
- Adolescence is only understood in the context of the
delayed frontal cortex's maturation, making it: frustrating,
great, asinine, impulsive, inspiring, destructive,
self-destructive, selfless, selfish, impossible and world
changing. Sapolsky adds it's when someone is most
likely to kill or be killed. A time of life of maximal
risk taking, novelty seeking, and affiliation with
peers.
The delayed development allows the brain to get all its parts
optimized from experience to leverage the social toolset: social
memory, emotional perspective taking, impulse control, empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. , self-regulation,
teamwork; appropriately in this particular proximate
environment.
The
nuts and bolts of frontal cortical maturation
During adolescence in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
the neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
of the frontal cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. that
are not used in the proximate environment prune themselves, programmed cell death is a signal initiated DNA controlled process which results in eukaryotic cells self-destructing. while
the rest migrate to their target locations, leaving an optimized
network. The This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolutionarily
oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first leaving the
relatively young dl PFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
changes waiting until late adolescence. And as the
configuration streamlines myelination is the fatty insulating material deployed by Schwann cells & oligodendrocytes, both types of glial cells, around axons to improve their conduction rate. In humans it is still occurring 25 years after birth. It has great impact on long axons, in neurons that project over long distances, where it helps brain inter-region signalling. The long development time of myelination allows for the later myelinated brain regions to be particularly shaped by the proximate environment.
increases the axon, a long extension of a neuron which has a membrane constructed to support the uni-directional flow of action potential from the dendritic tree and cell body to the synaptic terminals. 's
conduction speeds. While the frontal cortex takes shape
other brain regions provide cover: Ventral striatum is a region within the basal ganglia. It is a target of the tegmentostriatal dopamine pathway. It has been captured by brain imaging assigning values to subliminal symbols experimentally associated with winning (highly valued) and losing (low valuation) money. During adolescence, prior to the deployment of the prefrontal cortex, the ventral striatum helps balance/control emotional decision making.
helps out with emotional regulation.
The pubescent generation of gonadal hormones: Testosterone is a hormone secreted by the testes in response to stimulation from the hypothalamic/pituitary/testicular cascade, that makes humans more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status, according to Sapolsky. That means players of the Ultimatum Game, if previously given testosterone can become more generous. Testosterones effect is highly socially contextual so it may encourage acts of kindness or aggression (when challenged). The level of testosterone does not predict which individuals will be aggressive in: Birds, Fish, Mammals including primates. Genes impact the potency of testosterone by altering the enzymes that: Construct it, Convert it to estrogen, code the androgen receptor. This androgen receptor includes a variable polyglutamine repeat which alters the sensitivity to the testosterone signal. The more potent form is associated with boys showing more dramatic 'masculinization' of the cortex. But the detected genetic influences are small. Testosterone decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex and its functional coupling to the amygdala while increasing the coupling between the amygdala & the thalamus. Testosterone shortens the refactory period of amygdaloid & amygdaloid target neurons. This results in impulsive risk taking and more focus on unfamiliar faces and distrust of them. Testosterone increases activity in the ventral tegmentum projecting dopamine to enhance place preference. Winners of fights become more willing to fight in part due to testosterone increasing confidence and optimism and reducing fear and anxiety. And winning at: Chess, Athletics, Stock trades; induces the BNST to add testosterone receptors increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. People become overconfident and overly optimistic. , Estrogen is a generic term for a number of related steroid hormones each of which works differently. Estrogen: - Contributes to maternal aggression but it can reduce aggression and enhance empathy, depending on brain state. There are two different estrogen receptor types which mediate these conflicting effects. The levels of each type of receptor is independently regulated. Different receptor variants are associated with:
- Higher rates of anxiety among women
- Higher rates of antisocial behavior and conduct disorder in men
, Progesterone is a steroid hormone. It: - Rarely directly effects areas of the brain. Instead it is converted into other sterioids which have different actions in different brain areas.
- Increases maternal aggression in concert with estrogen by increasing oxytocin release in certain brain regions. However, on its own progresterone decreases aggression and anxiety. It decreases anxiety by entering neurons where it is converted to allopregnanolone which binds to GABA receptors increasing their sensitivity to GABA.
; is
dramatic and transformational. Adult female endocrine
function is cyclic but at puberty the activity is more
intermittent. Adolescent male brains also receive washes
of gonadal hormones and often suffer hypoxia from blood flow
diverted to the crotch.
Frontal Cortical Changes in Cognition in Adolescence
Sapolsky reviews how frontal
cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. maturation
is reflected in cognition is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. .
During adolescence in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
improvements are seen in:
Frontal
Cortical Changes in Emotional Regulation
Adolescents in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
experience
emotions are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. more intensely
than adults or young
children. They respond more to affective
visual displays is a face expressing strong emotions as interpreted by an observer's brain. In: - Adult observers this activates that amygdala and subsequently the vmPFC as they become habituated to the emotional content.
- Adolescents the vmPFC responds less allowing the amygdala's activation to keep growing.
. Coping using reappraisal
gets more effective during adolescence as the ventral striatum is a region within the basal ganglia. It is a target of the tegmentostriatal dopamine pathway. It has been captured by brain imaging assigning values to subliminal symbols experimentally associated with winning (highly valued) and losing (low valuation) money. During adolescence, prior to the deployment of the prefrontal cortex, the ventral striatum helps balance/control emotional decision making.
hands over the dampening activity to the frontal cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. .
While the striatum is involved dopamine is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling: - Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
based rewards are very significant
encouraging risk taking.
Adolescent Risk Taking
Adolescents in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
activate
the prefrontal
cortex (PFC) is - The front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. It evolved most recently. During adolescence when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent strategies: ventral striatum. The PFC has been implicated in planning, working memory: dorsolateral; decision making: Orbitofrontal cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC circuits track internal reward driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or restraint, especially between cognition and emotions. It imposes an overarching strategy for managing working memory. It is essential for thinking about multiple items with different labels. It includes neurons that are interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat. Once it has made a decision it signals the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease excitability of the PFC.
less often than adults when making risky, is an assessment of the likelihood of an independent problem occurring. It can be assigned an accurate probability since it is independent of other variables in the system. As such it is different from uncertainty. decisions. They do
not incorporate feedback based on their poor assessments about
bad news! So they are willing to take more risks.
They also seek more novelty, developing new and subsequently
stable tastes in music, food, and
fashion. In most primates adolescents of one sex make
their way into other groups driven by this desire for
novelty. Sapolsky suggests the novelty seeking reflects
the increasing development of the mesolimbic
projection includes projections between the tegmentum and the accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus; to the nucleus accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression.
and the mesocortical
projection includes projections between the tegmentum and the prefrontal cortex; to the frontal
cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system. . Novelty seeking peaks as the This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Key research is
reviewed.
emerging frontal regulation is prefrontal cortex which is:
- The front part of the frontal
lobe of the cerebral
cortex. It evolved
most recently. During adolescence
when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent
strategies: ventral
striatum. The PFC has been implicated in
planning, working memory:
dorsolateral;
decision making: Orbitofrontal
cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC
circuits track internal reward
driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The
PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or
restraint, especially between cognition
and emotions. It imposes
an overarching strategy for managing working memory.
It is essential for thinking about multiple items with
different labels. It includes neurons that are
interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat.
Once it has made a decision it signals
the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease
excitability of the PFC.
starts to
inhibit activity.
Peers,
social acceptance, and social exclusion
Adolescents in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
are
particularly vulnerable to peer pressure from
friends. They frantically need to belong.
Peers' signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. lessen
vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
activity & enhance
ventral striatal is a region within the basal ganglia. It is a target of the tegmentostriatal dopamine pathway. It has been captured by brain imaging assigning values to subliminal symbols experimentally associated with winning (highly valued) and losing (low valuation) money. During adolescence, prior to the deployment of the prefrontal cortex, the ventral striatum helps balance/control emotional decision making.
activity in adolescents but not adults. Rejection hurts
them more: Periaqueductal gray, ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
,
Amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
, Insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
; activation
with no calming signals from the vlPFC is ventrolateral prefrontal cortex .
Empathy, sympathy, and moral reasoning
Adolescents in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
are better
at seeing how they would feel in someone else's situation than
seeing how the other person might feel. Similarly their moral judgements provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning. are not
as sophisticated as adults since they fail to account for
systemic effects.
As they get older intentional harm to others becomes of interest
to the dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
& vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
rather than just the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
and insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
.
Sapolsky's core interest in the best & worst behaviors is
rewarded by adolescents ability to feel other's pain
empathetically is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. and try with boundless energy and
confidence to make 'things' right.
Except that doing
the right thing in an intense empathetic or moral situation
is about prior practice:
- Allowing the brain's signals to act
unconsciously, thus
- Avoiding overwhelming emotional pain becoming one's total
conscious inhibiting focus.
Adolescent violence
Sapolsky notes violence peaks in late adolescence in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
- early
adulthood, and then rates plummet. Adolescent violence is
driven by:
The Matt Taibbi describes the phenotypic
alignment of the American justice system. The result
he explains relentlessly grinds the poor and undocumented into
resources to be constrained, consumed and ejected. Even as
it supports and aligns the financial infrastructure into a
potent weapon capable of targeting any company or nation to
extract profits and leave the victim deflated.
Taibbi uses five scenarios to provide a broad picture of the:
activities, crimes, policing, prosecutions, court processes,
prisons and deportation network. The scenarios are:
Undocumented people's neighborhoods, Poor neighborhoods, Welfare
recipients, Credit card debtors and Financial institutions.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The alignment of the
justice system reflects a set of long term strategies and
responses to a powerful global arms race that the US leadership intends to
win.
criminal justice system has to
decide if adolescent criminals are to be considered fully in
control of their judgements. Sapolsky concludes that
Behave's scientific foundation demands
the transformation of the criminal justice system.
Back to the
Crib, Back to the Womb
Childhood is Sapolsky's next significant influence on our current good or bad behavior.
Complexification
Childhood's progressively increasing This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
complexity
occurs in stages. Neuron, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
formation, migration and synaptogenesis are mostly prenatal in humans. But myelination is the fatty insulating material deployed by Schwann cells & oligodendrocytes, both types of glial cells, around axons to improve their conduction rate. In humans it is still occurring 25 years after birth. It has great impact on long axons, in neurons that project over long distances, where it helps brain inter-region signalling. The long development time of myelination allows for the later myelinated brain regions to be particularly shaped by the proximate environment. occurs when a
region has setup its mature structure and is optimizing.
Sapolsky reiterates the later a brain region matures the more it
is influenced by the environment: internal & external.
And he concludes that it is useful to remember that the
significant aspects of childhood that will be highlighted all
alter genes in the brain. That is the only way it can work
and the linkage reveals how bad outcomes might be reversed and
good outcomes reinforced.
Stages
For Jean Piaget the brain's developmental
stages defines a series including the: Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete operational stage, Formal operational stage; of child development. It is an experimentally derived early model of behavioral development allowing an assessment of the: role of evolved stages, impact of experience, implications for the resulting adult; of the complex process. Neural formation, migration and synaptogenesis are prenatal. Myelination proceeds in stages for 25 years. Sapolsky notes that Piaget's cognitive model ignores emotions and social factors which can't be right. And while the network of mental agents cooperate to develop coherent responses, our developmental models should represent the separate development of the agents that process objects, faces etc., that allow a child to miss transitivity between objects but detect it in faces. were cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. .
Sapolsky adds an early cognitive stage occurs when toddlers form
ego boundaries are a cognitive developmental stage that starts when a child realizes there is a 'me,' separate from everyone else. Prior to the ego boundary a toddler that sees his mother has cut her finger claims his finger hurts. .
By nine months infants understand that others have information
they don't. Older children eventually reach a stage where
they achieve Theory of
Mind of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony. . But Sapolsky reminds us that Behave's premise is that cognitive development is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete. can't be
viewed in isolation from emotion
and social
effects.
Feeling someone
else's pain
Children next realize that others can have different
feelings. Sapolsky stresses the path to full empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. progresses in
stages. Young children's empathy makes no distinction
between:
- Intentional and unintentional harm
- Harm to a person and to an object; These happen with
age as the PAG is periaqueductal gray, an ancient core brain structure that projects pain sensations to the amygdala. response
lessens and the vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
and dmPFC is dorsomedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- A major agent of the sense
of self and theory of mind
in human adults.
- It participates in altruism.
, precuneus, superior
temporal sulcus separates the superior temporal gyrus from the middle temporal gyrus within the temporal lobe. It is implicated in multi-sensory processing. It helps mediate theory of mind. It has been found to participate in the McGurk effect (Feb 2017). , temporoparietal
junction is the temporoparietal juncture: left, right; where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, an area of the cortex with projections from the thalamus, limbic system, visual, auditory and somatosensory networks. It supports modeling of self and others. engage.
By age seven children express their own empathy. By 10 to
12 empathy is abstracted and generalized. And Sapolsky
notes children first negatively stereotype categories of
people.
Similar stages are seen with responses to injustice is when someone has been treated unfairly. Young children, aged four to six in all cultures, are aware of being treated unjustly. By age eight to ten kids in some cultures respond negatively to others being treated unjustly. At that point they attempt to rectify previous inequity. But by pre-adolescence they are accepting of inequality, justified by merit, effort, or team needs. And by adolescence boys accept injustice on utilitarian grounds and both sexes accept it can't be fixed; it's the way it is. Mitigated free will argues that a person should be held responsible for their actions except for mitigating circumstances of a defect of reason produced by a psychosis. .
Moral Development
Kohlberg leveraged Piaget's
ideas defines a series including the: Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete operational stage, Formal operational stage; of child development. It is an experimentally derived early model of behavioral development allowing an assessment of the: role of evolved stages, impact of experience, implications for the resulting adult; of the complex process. Neural formation, migration and synaptogenesis are prenatal. Myelination proceeds in stages for 25 years. Sapolsky notes that Piaget's cognitive model ignores emotions and social factors which can't be right. And while the network of mental agents cooperate to develop coherent responses, our developmental models should represent the separate development of the agents that process objects, faces etc., that allow a child to miss transitivity between objects but detect it in faces. including: Children working out rules of appropriate
behavior; and experimentally demonstrated stages of moral
development defines a three stage moral process: - Preconventional reasoning (until age 8 - 10) initially allows aggression. But around two to four years old adult and peer punishment inhibits the use of aggression. And subsequently rewards become significant in the decision process. When these judgements about aggression don't change at age 8 - 10 it predicts increasing risk of adult sociopathy. For the others post conflict reconciliation decreases glucocorticoid levels and anxiety.
- Conventional reasoning (adolescents and adults) reviews the consequences to others and if they are friends, as well as what others would likely do. Being well regarded is also significant. The law becomes significant in the later stage of this phase.
- Post conventional reasoning (Inspiring heroes & insufferable pedants) first increases the value of self-judgement when judging rules. And beyond this are moral acts valued because they represent a position more important than a law.
. He concluded such judgements are cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. . Sapolsky
notes studies suggesting
conservatives and liberals reason at different stages of
Kohlberg's The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Samuel
modeling is described as an approach.
model. But the
studies focused on Americans, missing the cross-cultural moral
differences and undervaluing intuition and emotion are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. . And they
fail to predict who will do the harder-but-right thing.
Instead that is powerfully predicted by children's scores in Walter Mischel's experiments.
Marshmallows
In the 1960s Mischel was studying gratification postponement and
developed the marshmallow
test is Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel's experiment studying gratification postponement. A child is presented with a marshmallow and told that the experimenter is leaving the room and if the child doesn't eat the marshmallow before the experimenter returns he will be given another. The child is then observed through a two way mirror. Only a third of the children lasted the fifteen minutes. To achieve the task the children had to: Trust in the system, avoid hot ideation of the marshmallow, or displace it with cold ideation of the marshmallow or hot ideation of some other object. It was performed on three to six year olds, but subsequently predicted their SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! . Significantly Mischel tracked his subject
children's subsequent adult lives. Forty years later, the
children who were able to delay gratification had: Averaged
higher SATs, More social success/resilience and less aggressive
and oppositional behavior, Lower average BMI is body mass index. s and excelled at frontal cortical of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system.
function.
Consequences
Sapolsky reviews what childhood events significantly contribute
through biology to their adult best or worst behaviors: Mothers, Childhood adversity,
Observing violence, Bullying; and subsequently explores: Why most children are still resilient
enough to avoid the worst impacts, What
happens when everything is wrong, The process by which parents mediate
cultural memes into their children.
Let's
start at the very beginning: The importance of mothers
John Bowlby's attachment
theory is John Bowlby's model of mother infant bonding. He argued that infants need: love, warmth, affection, responsiveness, stimulation, consistency, reliability; or they become anxious, depressed, and/or poorly attached adults. Evolutionarily, sociopaths may be highly successful as managers and leaders but they are probably anxious. Sapolsky notes the powerful association between murder rates and stopping pregnant girls from terminating unwanted pregnancies. Typical mothers also provide training on social conventions and their children's position in the group hierarchy. Children raised without a mother's support fail to understand social constraints and when to use social behaviors. And in the presence of unsupportive mothers newborns attach to negative stimuli. This response is explained by the SHRP. Abused children subsequently seek out abusive relationships as adults. And a percentage of infants abused by their mothers become abusive mothers. launched the modern view of the importance of the
mother-infant bond which was subsequently validated
experimentally by Wisconsin's
Harry
Harlow in the infant monkey placed the infants with constructed mothers. The mothers were made of wire mesh with a feeding bottle attached to the chest. Some of the 'mothers' differed in being covered with terry cloth. If the infants were given a choice they chose the terry-cloth mother, even if they were forced to feed from the wire cage mother. And the infant monkeys that only experienced the wire cage mother and could not 'cling' failed to attach. .
And, the eventual explanation for a massive drop in crime rates
observed starting in the 1990s, provides further evidence
of mother-infant bond's significance in humans: Stanford's
Donohue & Chicago's
Levitt identified that the drop in violence correlated with
state abortion legalization passed 20 years prior. The
problem was being born to a mother the child knows would prefer
you don't exist. Again Harlow's results confirmed Donohue
& Levitt's proposals. And the infant monkeys Harlow
wrecked had the full set of behaviors, but didn't know when to
use them effectively. Without mothers to teach them, they
had no social context.
Any kind of mother in a storm
Sapolsky explains the SHRP is stress hypo-responsive period, an evolved strategy to protect the developing brain of a newborn from stress generated glucocorticoid based damage. The many adverse effects on brain development of glucocorticoids induce an advantage from temporarily shrinking the adrenals. SHRP makes sense since a newborn's mother will be better equipped to handle the stress. During the SHRP any strong stimulus is assumed positive and the newborn attaches to it. Without access to a mother the SHRP strategy is abandoned and the adrenals expand and secrete glucocorticoids.
evolved to protect the very young brain from damage from glucocorticoids are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017). .
But when mom is the source of the aversive stimuli the SHRP
ensures abused children will seek similarly abusive
relationships as adults, and the girls are more likely to become
abusive mothers.
Different
routes to the same place
Most other significant events have similar impacts - Sapolsky
groups them as forms of childhood adversity includes different types of stressor: No mother, Unsupportive mother, paternal deprivation, Childhood poverty, [Observing ]violence, Natural disasters, Bullying; which impact development and produce adult problems. - The adversities are stressful and alter stress physiology producing children and adults with elevated: Glucocorticoids, CRH and ACTH, Sympathetic nervous system activity. Early stress permanently impacts the brains ability to control glucocorticoid secretion. The more stressors experienced and the less protective factors, the less likely it is that the child will cope and become a resilient adult. The stressors expand the size and activity of the amygdala helping it ignore prefrontal cortex constraints. And they degrade the dopamine network through impacts to the development of the mesolimbic system and elevated adult glucocorticoids depleting dopamine.
- The problems include attachment issues and adults with: depression (dopamine depletion and lowered thresholds making adult stressors more influential), anxiety, substance abuse (dopamine depletion, excessive adult exposure to glucocorticoids increasing drug craving & poorly developed frontal cortex), impaired cognitive abilities especially frontocortical with impaired hippocampal-dependent learning, impaired impulse control (amygdala), impaired emotional control, antisocial behavior and violence, relationships that replicate the childhood adversities. Abused children who develop PTSD show decreased hippocampal volume. Glucocorticoids decrease hippocampal production of BDNF. Childhood poverty impacts development of the corpus callosum & ensures by kindergarten, poor marshmallow test performance. Childhood poverty increases impacts from environmental stressors: Toxins, Liquor stores instead of fresh food markets, No transport infrastructure, Limited jobs in the immediate vicinity, Little access to low cost capital, Low positions in all social hierarchies.
resulting in the same biological
profile:
- The adversities are stressful and alter stress physiology producing
children and adults with elevated: Glucocorticoids, CRH and ACTH,
Sympathetic nervous system activity. Early stress
permanently impacts the brains ability to control
glucocorticoid secretion. The more stressors
experienced and the less protective factors, the less
likely it is that the child will cope and become a
resilient adult. The stressors expand the size and
activity of the amygdala
helping it ignore prefrontal
cortex constraints. And they degrade the dopamine network
through impacts to the development of the mesolimbic system
and elevated adult glucocorticoids depleting
dopamine.
- The problems include attachment
issues and adults with: depression
(dopamine depletion and lowered thresholds making adult
stressors more influential), anxiety,
substance abuse (dopamine depletion, excessive adult
exposure to glucocorticoids increasing drug craving &
poorly developed frontal
cortex), impaired cognitive abilities especially
frontocortical with impaired hippocampal-dependent
learning, impaired impulse control (amygdala), impaired emotional control, antisocial
behavior and violence, relationships that replicate the
childhood adversities. Abused children who develop PTSD show decreased hippocampal volume.
Glucocorticoids decrease hippocampal production of BDNF. Childhood poverty
impacts development of the corpus
callosum & ensures by kindergarten, poor marshmallow test
performance. Childhood poverty increases impacts
from environmental stressors: Toxins, Liquor stores
instead of fresh food markets, No transport
infrastructure, Limited jobs in the immediate vicinity,
Little access to low cost capital,
Low positions in all social hierarchies.
.
Observing Violence
Exposure to scenes
of violence such as: domestic abuse, warfare, murders, massacres; as children result in impaired concentration and impulse control Sapolsky explains. Observed gun violence increases the child's adopting violence as a coping strategy. Later as adults there is increased risk of depression, anxiety and aggression. Even observing realistic violence indirectly on media causes the responses. desensitizes and normalizes the aggression of
those already prone to violence.
Bullying
While bullying is a complex childhood adversity. Sapolsky explains that targets of bullying aren't selected at random. And bullies often come from families with single mothers or younger parents with low educational and economic prospects. Sapolsky notes that someone who bullies and is also bullied is likely to be a real mess as an adult. is one of
the many forms of childhood
adversity includes different types of stressor: No mother, Unsupportive mother, paternal deprivation, Childhood poverty, [Observing ]violence, Natural disasters, Bullying; which impact development and produce adult problems. - The adversities are stressful and alter stress physiology producing children and adults with elevated: Glucocorticoids, CRH and ACTH, Sympathetic nervous system activity. Early stress permanently impacts the brains ability to control glucocorticoid secretion. The more stressors experienced and the less protective factors, the less likely it is that the child will cope and become a resilient adult. The stressors expand the size and activity of the amygdala helping it ignore prefrontal cortex constraints. And they degrade the dopamine network through impacts to the development of the mesolimbic system and elevated adult glucocorticoids depleting dopamine.
- The problems include attachment issues and adults with: depression (dopamine depletion and lowered thresholds making adult stressors more influential), anxiety, substance abuse (dopamine depletion, excessive adult exposure to glucocorticoids increasing drug craving & poorly developed frontal cortex), impaired cognitive abilities especially frontocortical with impaired hippocampal-dependent learning, impaired impulse control (amygdala), impaired emotional control, antisocial behavior and violence, relationships that replicate the childhood adversities. Abused children who develop PTSD show decreased hippocampal volume. Glucocorticoids decrease hippocampal production of BDNF. Childhood poverty impacts development of the corpus callosum & ensures by kindergarten, poor marshmallow test performance. Childhood poverty increases impacts from environmental stressors: Toxins, Liquor stores instead of fresh food markets, No transport infrastructure, Limited jobs in the immediate vicinity, Little access to low cost capital, Low positions in all social hierarchies.
, Sapolsky singles it out because of the
complexity: the targets aren't selected at random. More often they have personal or family psychiatric issues and poor social and emotional intelligence.
and the bullies often come from families with single mothers or younger parents with low educational and economic prospects. They may be bullied as they bully which results in very poorly adjusted adults who see bullying as ok and are likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and suicidality. And otherwise bullies are either: - Anxious, isolated children with poor social skills aiming to achieve acceptance and reduce their own frustration.
- Future sociopaths.
are the
product of additional adversity and the targets aren't selected
at random.
A key question
Sapolsky considers why are many children resilient to childhood adversity includes different types of stressor: No mother, Unsupportive mother, paternal deprivation, Childhood poverty, [Observing ]violence, Natural disasters, Bullying; which impact development and produce adult problems. - The adversities are stressful and alter stress physiology producing children and adults with elevated: Glucocorticoids, CRH and ACTH, Sympathetic nervous system activity. Early stress permanently impacts the brains ability to control glucocorticoid secretion. The more stressors experienced and the less protective factors, the less likely it is that the child will cope and become a resilient adult. The stressors expand the size and activity of the amygdala helping it ignore prefrontal cortex constraints. And they degrade the dopamine network through impacts to the development of the mesolimbic system and elevated adult glucocorticoids depleting dopamine.
- The problems include attachment issues and adults with: depression (dopamine depletion and lowered thresholds making adult stressors more influential), anxiety, substance abuse (dopamine depletion, excessive adult exposure to glucocorticoids increasing drug craving & poorly developed frontal cortex), impaired cognitive abilities especially frontocortical with impaired hippocampal-dependent learning, impaired impulse control (amygdala), impaired emotional control, antisocial behavior and violence, relationships that replicate the childhood adversities. Abused children who develop PTSD show decreased hippocampal volume. Glucocorticoids decrease hippocampal production of BDNF. Childhood poverty impacts development of the corpus callosum & ensures by kindergarten, poor marshmallow test performance. Childhood poverty increases impacts from environmental stressors: Toxins, Liquor stores instead of fresh food markets, No transport infrastructure, Limited jobs in the immediate vicinity, Little access to low cost capital, Low positions in all social hierarchies.
?
He argues that:
A sledgehammer
Sadly 1980s Romanian infant institutions provided a human
equivalent to Harlow's
experimental setup in the infant monkey placed the infants with constructed mothers. The mothers were made of wire mesh with a feeding bottle attached to the chest. Some of the 'mothers' differed in being covered with terry cloth. If the infants were given a choice they chose the terry-cloth mother, even if they were forced to feed from the wire cage mother. And the infant monkeys that only experienced the wire cage mother and could not 'cling' failed to attach. . Ceausescu's banning of abortion
and requirement for families to have at least five children
resulted in impoverished families abandoning newborns.
Overwhelmed institutions generated deprivation and
neglect. The children's lives were followed by Harvard's
Charles Nelson who characterized them as adults:
- Low IQ and poor cognitive
skills is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen.
.
- Attachment is John Bowlby's model of mother infant bonding. He argued that infants need: love, warmth, affection, responsiveness, stimulation, consistency, reliability; or they become anxious, depressed, and/or poorly attached adults. Evolutionarily, sociopaths may be highly successful as managers and leaders but they are probably anxious. Sapolsky notes the powerful association between murder rates and stopping pregnant girls from terminating unwanted pregnancies. Typical mothers also provide training on social conventions and their children's position in the group hierarchy. Children raised without a mother's support fail to understand social constraints and when to use social behaviors. And in the presence of unsupportive mothers newborns attach to negative stimuli. This response is explained by the SHRP. Abused children subsequently seek out abusive relationships as adults. And a percentage of infants abused by their mothers become abusive mothers.
problems
- Anxiety is manifested in the amygdala mediating inhibition of dopamine rewards. Major anxiety results in elevated glucocorticoids and reduces hippocampal dendrite & spine density. Some estrogen receptor variants are associated with anxiety in women.
& depression is a debilitating state which is facilitated by genetic predisposition - for example genes coding for relatively low serotonin levels; and an accumulation of traumatic events. There is evidence of shifts in the sleep/wake cycle in affected individuals (Dec 2015). The affected person will experience a pathological sense of loss of control, prolonged sadness, irritability, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and inability to experience pleasure. It affects 12% of men and 20% of women. It appears to be associated with androgen deprivation therapy treatment for prostate cancer (Apr 2016). Chronic stress depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine, biasing humans towards depression. Depression easily leads to following unhealthy pathways: drinking, overeating; which increase the risk of heart disease. It has been associated with an aging related B12 deficiency (Sep 2016). During depression, stress mediates inhibition of dopamine signalling. There is an association between depression and particular brain regions: Hippocampal dendrite and spine number reductions, Dorsal raphe nucleus linked to loneliness, Abnormalities of the ACC. Childhood adversity can increase depression risk by linking recollections of uncontrollable situations to overgeneralizations that life will always be terrible and uncontrollable. Treatments include: CBT, UMHS depression management. As of 2010 drug treatments take weeks to facilitate a response & many patients do not respond to the first drug applied, often prolonging the agony. Genomic predictions of which treatment will be effective have not been possible because: Not all clinical depressions are the same, a standard definition of drug response is difficult;
- Decreased: Total brain size, Gray matter, White matter, Frontal cortical of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system.
metabolism, Connectivity between regions, Sizes of
individual brain regions; except for
- Enlarged amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala:
- Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
Culture,
with both a big and a little c
Prior to the general
review of culture's effects on our best and worst behaviors,
Sapolsky reviews how: culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
influences childhood and parents mediate the process.
Sapolsky explains this begins with parenting style is a psychological classification including: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, neglectful; ways of parenting that provide children with their first experience of proximate culture. Each style typically produces adults that use that same approach. Different cultures value different styles. .
He stresses that each style usually produces adults with that
same approach, with different cultures valuing different
styles.
He adds transmission by peers from a young age as identified by
Judith Harris is a book by Judith Rich Harris which argues children's personality is most significantly influenced by peers. Her reasons include: - Parental influence is mediated by peers
- Peers impact linguistic development
- Other primates are socialized by peers, not mothers.
in The
Nurture Assumption. Sapolsky explains that children
play is a powerful tool for learning social competence. It appears universal among socially complex species. It has an evolved high priority displacing foraging and using up energy stores. There are a number of behavioral strategies practiced in play that train those participating. Play: - Supports safe practice of using social tools. Allows for trying out roles and honing motor skills.
- Allows a peer group to provide context for these developments: Approach to hierarchy; etc. Parents will aim to select the peer group.
- It integrates cultural details from local neighborhoods
- It supports practice of aggression.
- Demonstrates that transient stress is enjoyable.
- It allows the developing neuron network to identify which synapses to prune.
with peers, which builds
social competence. And neighborhoods transmit their
cultural characteristics. As do tribes, nations and
states.
Parents in cultures of
honor tend to be authoritarian. The children are
aggressive and endorse violent responses to honor is a doomsday machine emotional signal, which Pinker explains as an advertisement of the desire to publically avenge even minor trespasses and insults. violations.
Collectivist
versus individualist cultures
Mothers in individualist
cultures, speak louder, play music louder, are more
animated and see their role as teacher. They encourage
individually competitive games and hobbies where children do
things. The children are taught to be assertive,
autonomous & influential. They acquire theory of mind of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony. later
than collectivist children.
Mothers in collectivist
cultures, spend more time soothing their children,
maintaining contact, and facilitating contact with other
adults. They pick cooperative games. They stress
getting along, thinking of others, accepting and adapting.
These children see social competence as taking someone else's
perspective.
Class differences
St. Michael's College anthropologist Adrie Kusserow observed
parent child interactions in three US is the United States of America.
neighborhoods:
- Wealthy is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. , upper middle
class - Soft individualism, with authoritative is a parenting style focused on arbitrary, rigid rules and demands with behavior shaped by punishment.
or permissive is a parenting style where rules aren't enforced and the children set the agenda.
parents facilitating fulfillment & using metaphors
like: flowering, blooming, growing, blossoming; focused on
individual children.
- Stable, working class - Hard offensive individualism, with
kids expected to maintain their authoritarian is a parenting style focused on arbitrary, rigid rules and demands with behavior shaped by punishment.
parent's upward socioeconomic momentum.
- Collapsed, lower class - Hard defensive individualism,
with authoritarian is a parenting style focused on arbitrary, rigid rules and demands with behavior shaped by punishment.
parents focused on keeping what had been achieved so
far. Parents hoped to provide shelter. Children
are treated as a group.
Nine long months
The demonstration that fetuses were affected by what they tasted
& heard outside
the womb encouraged interest among the public. For
our best and worst behaviors Sapolsky judges other neonatal
environmental influences are even more significant: Glands are
active in the fetus and their action is transformative, Hostile
external environment.
Boy
and girl brains, whatever that might mean
Sapolsky stresses that hormones are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy.
have lifelong organizational effects in the fetus, rather than
the activation effects seen
in adults. Eight weeks post-conception: Male brains
are masculinized by fetal gonads secreting testosterone is a hormone secreted by the testes in response to stimulation from the hypothalamic/pituitary/testicular cascade, that makes humans more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status, according to Sapolsky. That means players of the Ultimatum Game, if previously given testosterone can become more generous. Testosterones effect is highly socially contextual so it may encourage acts of kindness or aggression (when challenged). The level of testosterone does not predict which individuals will be aggressive in: Birds, Fish, Mammals including primates. Genes impact the potency of testosterone by altering the enzymes that: Construct it, Convert it to estrogen, code the androgen receptor. This androgen receptor includes a variable polyglutamine repeat which alters the sensitivity to the testosterone signal. The more potent form is associated with boys showing more dramatic 'masculinization' of the cortex. But the detected genetic influences are small. Testosterone decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex and its functional coupling to the amygdala while increasing the coupling between the amygdala & the thalamus. Testosterone shortens the refactory period of amygdaloid & amygdaloid target neurons. This results in impulsive risk taking and more focus on unfamiliar faces and distrust of them. Testosterone increases activity in the ventral tegmentum projecting dopamine to enhance place preference. Winners of fights become more willing to fight in part due to testosterone increasing confidence and optimism and reducing fear and anxiety. And winning at: Chess, Athletics, Stock trades; induces the BNST to add testosterone receptors increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. People become overconfident and overly optimistic. &
"anti-Mullerian hormone," Female gonad's secret estrogen is a generic term for a number of related steroid hormones each of which works differently. Estrogen: - Contributes to maternal aggression but it can reduce aggression and enhance empathy, depending on brain state. There are two different estrogen receptor types which mediate these conflicting effects. The levels of each type of receptor is independently regulated. Different receptor variants are associated with:
- Higher rates of anxiety among women
- Higher rates of antisocial behavior and conduct disorder in men
and progesterone is a steroid hormone. It: - Rarely directly effects areas of the brain. Instead it is converted into other sterioids which have different actions in different brain areas.
- Increases maternal aggression in concert with estrogen by increasing oxytocin release in certain brain regions. However, on its own progresterone decreases aggression and anxiety. It decreases anxiety by entering neurons where it is converted to allopregnanolone which binds to GABA receptors increasing their sensitivity to GABA.
.
But Sapolsky warns of messy complications:
- Rodent brains aren't fully sexually differentiated at
birth - a situation which continues postnatally
- Testosterone enters the target brain cells where it is
converted to estrogen. And its very hard to quantify
amounts experimentally.
- Female brains:
- Male brains:
- In rodents prenatal testosterone exposure had
masculinizing organizational effects resulting in adult
male activation effects of testosterone and
estrogen.
- Most experiments on humans have had limited success in
clarifying the significance of these potential
effects.
Expanding
the scope of "environment"
Many external factors have an impact:
- Food/malnutrition and alcohol/opioids/cocaine
addiction
- Pathogens
- Maternal stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis.
- The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
impacts fetal development. Indirectly the mothers tend
to have less healthy diets. More directly hypertension is high blood pressure. It is directly associated with death rate due to pressure induced damage to the left ventricle and in general to cardiovascular diseases. Treated with antihypertensives: Diuretics, Calcium channel blockers, Angiotensin receptor blockers or Beta blockers. and immune system has to support and protect an inventory of host cell types, detect and respond to invaders and maintain the symbiont equilibrium within the microbiome. It detects microbes which have breached the secreted mucus barrier, driving them back and fortifying the barrier. It culls species within the microbiome that are expanding beyond requirements. It destroys invaders who make it into the internal transport networks. As part of its initialization it has immune cells which suppress the main system to allow the microbiome to bootstrap. The initial microbiome is tailored by the antibodies supplied from the mother's milk while breastfeeding. The immune system consists of two main parts the older non-adaptive part and the newer adaptive part. The adaptive part achieves this property by being schematically specified by DNA which is highly variable. By rapid reproduction the system recombines the DNA variable regions in vast numbers of offspring cells which once they have been shown not to attack the host cell lines are used as templates for interacting with any foreign body (antigen). When the immune cell's DNA hyper-variable regions are expressed as y-shaped antibody proteins they typically include some receptor like structures which match the surfaces of the typical antigen. Once the antibody becomes bound to the antigen the immune system cells can destroy the invader.
impacts compromise the fetus. And stressed mothers
secrete glucocorticoids
which can have lifelong impacts on the fetus are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017). .
Back
to when you were just a fertilized egg
Sapolsky reviews the contribution of the Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
genome
to our best and worst behavior. It is a contentious
subject with Russ Abbott explores the impact on science of epiphenomena and
the emergence of agents.
reductionists arguing
genes imply essentialism at one extreme and the other where
people resist linking genes and behavior. He notes that
gene alleles, one of multiple alternative forms of a schematic sequence with the same address on a schematic string. affect:
- Aggression
- Neurotransmitter, growth factors are chemical signals which stimulate cellular growth. In the brain they induce plasticity.
and hormone are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy.
specifications
- Enzymes, a protein with a structure which allows it to operate as a chemical catalyst and a control switch.
that manage
neurotransmitter, growth factor and hormone transmitter,
signal and receptor, in biological cells these proteins are able to span the cell membrane and present an active site which is tailored to interact with a specific signal. When the receptor pairs with its signal, its overall shape changes resulting in changes in the part internal to the cell which can be relayed by the cells signalling infrastructure. In neuron synapses one type of receptor (fast) is associated with an ion channel. The other (slow) is associated with a signalling enzyme chain and modulates the neuron's response.
lifecycles.
Part 1:
Genes from the bottom up
But Sapolsky concludes that while genes are important, they are
not Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents and they are constrained
in what they can do by the 'environment':
- DNA (DNA), a polymer composed of a chain of deoxy ribose sugars with purine or pyrimidine side chains. DNA naturally forms into helical pairs with the side chains stacked in the center of the helix. It is a natural form of schematic string. The purines and pyrimidines couple so that AT and GC pairs make up the stackable items. A code of triplets of base pairs (enabling 64 separate items to be named) has evolved which now redundantly represents each of the 20 amino-acids that are deployed into proteins, along with triplets representing the termination sequence. Chemical modifications and histone binding (chromatin) allow cells to represent state directly on the DNA schema. To cope with inconsistencies in the cell wide state second messenger and evolved amplification strategies are used.
transcription is the process where DNA is converted into messenger m-RNA. A complex of enzymes cooperates to bind to the DNA and generate the m-RNA copy. There are a number of such transcription complexes which are based on RNA polymerase I, II or III. is
regulated with transcription
factors are enzymes which associate with a transcription complex to bind to the DNA and control its transcription and hence translation into proteins. The regulation of DNA transcription and protein synthesis are reviewed by Tsonis. Transcription factors allow environmental state to become reflected in the control of DNA transcription. Transcription factors can regulate multiple genes, allowing network effects & multiple transcription factors can regulate a gene allowing sophisticated control processes. In AWF the transcription, translation and deployment infrastructure of the eukaryotic cell has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. , many of which operate on the 95% of
non-coding DNA that enables sophisticated transcriptional
control mechanisms.
- Epi-genetic represent state surfaces within cells and eggs which can be operationally modified so as to provide a heritable structure. DNA, histones and other stable structures provide surfaces where these states may be setup. Egg carriers are in a particularly powerful position to induce epi-genetic changes. Sapolsky notes [childhood] events which persistently alter brain structure and behavior via epi-genetic mechanisms including: pair-bonding in prairie voles, as they first mate, is supported by changes in oxytocin & vasopressin receptor gene regulation in the nucleus accumbens.
changes alter the way genes work over a life-time or
longer.
- Alternate splicing of introns expands the proteins
generated.
- Transposons are regions of DNA which are copied and inserted into other areas of the DNA schemata. Their effect and existence was first noted by Barbara McClintock. Plants, when under stress, utilize transposons to rapidly evolve their genomes. Animal's immune systems and neuronal stem cells when forming memories, also leverage transposons.
radically change the DNA sequence.
Transcription factors in neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
are regulated by the This page discusses the potential of the vast state space which
supports the emergence of complex
adaptive systems (CAS).
Kauffman describes the mechanism by which the system expands
across the space.
environment:
Intracellular where the immediate chemical state can activate a
transcription factor, Adjacent neuron which signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. this neuron
across a synapse, a neuron structure which provides a junction with other neurons. It generates signal molecules, either excitatory or inhibitory, which are kept in vesicles until the synapse is stimulated when the signal molecules are released across the synaptic cleft from the neuron. The provisioning of synapses is under genetic control and is part of long term memory formation as identified by Eric Kandel. Modulation signals (from slow receptors) initiate the synaptic strengthening which occurs in memory. , Distant
organ that generates a hormone transported in the blood to a
receptor on the neural
circuit, a network of interconnected neurons which perform signalling, modeling and control functions. In Cajal's basic neural circuits the signalling is unidirectional. He identified three classes of neurons in the circuits: - Sensory, Interneurons, Motor; which are biochemically distinct and suffer different disease states.
, Outside world of smells and sights. The
transcription factors and the genes they activate operate in a
CAS where:
- Genes encode the 1,500 different transcription factors
- The human genome contains four million transcription
factor binding sites.
- The presence of a particular set of transcription factors
control the transcription of a network of genes, including
those coding for other transcription factors.
- An average cell uses 200,000 transcription factor binding
sites to generate its distinctive gene-expression
profile.
Sapolsky explains that epi-genetic represent state surfaces within cells and eggs which can be operationally modified so as to provide a heritable structure. DNA, histones and other stable structures provide surfaces where these states may be setup. Egg carriers are in a particularly powerful position to induce epi-genetic changes. Sapolsky notes [childhood] events which persistently alter brain structure and behavior via epi-genetic mechanisms including: pair-bonding in prairie voles, as they first mate, is supported by changes in oxytocin & vasopressin receptor gene regulation in the nucleus accumbens.
changes can reflect chemical & structural shifts which alter
the ability of transcription factors to bind to the target
DNA. Lamarckian inheritance of environmental effects can
occur over generations!
And Sapolsky notes that proteins, a relatively long chain (polymer) of peptides. Shorter chains of peptides are termed polypeptides.
are often constructed uses the product of the transcription of DNA into messenger m-RNA and is mostly the translation of the m-RNA into a folded protein by Ribosomes and t-RNA.
from m-RNA (RNA), a polymer composed of a chain of ribose sugars. It does not naturally form into a paired double helix and so is far less stable than DNA. Chains of DNA are converted by transcription into equivalently sequenced messenger m-RNA. RNA also provides the associations that encode the genetic code. Transfer t-RNAs have a site that maps to the codon and match the associated amino-acid. Stuart Kauffman argues that RNA polymers may be the precursor to our current DNA based genome and protein based enzymes. In the adaptive web framework's (AWF) Smiley we use a similar paradigm with no proteins. sequences that
contain non-coding introns. Enzymes, a protein with a structure which allows it to operate as a chemical catalyst and a control switch. then remove the
introns. The mechanism enables multiple protein variants
to be generated from one DNA sequence. 90% of human genes
with exons are alternately spliced.
Sapolsky considers the impact of transposons are regions of DNA which are copied and inserted into other areas of the DNA schemata. Their effect and existence was first noted by Barbara McClintock. Plants, when under stress, utilize transposons to rapidly evolve their genomes. Animal's immune systems and neuronal stem cells when forming memories, also leverage transposons. , which he
notes operate within neuronal stem cells is a biological cell which is partly or wholly undifferentiated. A totipotent cell can generate a complete embryo and placenta. Embryos include pluripotent cells which can generate any tissue in the body. Adult humans' cells have turned off this ability but still include multipotent stem cells that differentiate into multiple cell types. Typically a cell's local environment will have the signals required for it to obtain context and differentiate appropriately. This will include both the external environment and the internal state of the cell which has replicated from a parent and obtained its epi-genetic state. So introduction of undifferentiated stem cells into an injured area is not likely to have either aspect of the environment suitable. Consequently development is aiming to encourage differentiation to progenitor cells for the damaged region. This requires delivering the cells to the appropriate part of the body. To avoid rejection by the immune system techniques aim to use cell lines developed from the patient's cells. The techniques to generate these cell lines include: SCNT, iPS. Possible mechanisms of stem cell therapy are: Generation of new differentiated cells, Stimulation of growth of new blood vessels to repopulate damaged regions, Secretion of growth factors, Treatment of diabetes (1 and 2) with addition of pancreatic cells, Assistance of other mechanisms; in the brain
expanding the genome of neurons forming memories.
Part 2: Genes from
the top down--Behavior Genetics
Sapolsky argues that 'behavioral genetics' had struggled to
quantify the magnitude of genetic effects on: IQ, Sexual
orientation; forcing additional approaches:
- It was assumed that traits found in families were genetic
but the environmental contribution could not be easily
disentangled.
- Twin studies allowed an assessment of the concordance rate is a percentage that indicates how much genomic & epi-genetic effects contribute to a behavior of twins: Schizophrenia is 50%;
for behaviors.
- Identical twin studies compare monozygotic and fraternal
twins. Twins were found who had been separated at
birth introducing variation in environments. But there
are issues:
- Environment is assumed to be shared equally by
monozygotic twins and same sex fraternal twins but is
not.
- Parents treat identical twins differently to fraternal
twins.
- Only monozygotic twins share placentas (in 75% of cases)
and this will make their environments more similar.
Epi-genetic represent state surfaces within cells and eggs which can be operationally modified so as to provide a heritable structure. DNA, histones and other stable structures provide surfaces where these states may be setup. Egg carriers are in a particularly powerful position to induce epi-genetic changes. Sapolsky notes [childhood] events which persistently alter brain structure and behavior via epi-genetic mechanisms including: pair-bonding in prairie voles, as they first mate, is supported by changes in oxytocin & vasopressin receptor gene regulation in the nucleus accumbens.
and prenatal environment are shared for monozygotic
twins.
- Adoptive parents aren't chosen randomly but are matched
to the child undermining the assumption that the
environment is different.
- Adoptive parents tend to be more educated, wealthier is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. , more
psychiatrically healthy than biological parents.
- Genes influence on heritability is a population genetics measure indicating the percentage of total variation attributable to genetics. Wearing skirts in the US is highly correlated with being female and is thus of high heritability, but is not a strongly inherited trait. Sapolsky notes that research often inflates heritability scores because: Environmental influence is hard to control for and assess and it may significantly alter the operation of genes; so the more environments a gene's heritability is studied in the lower the score is likely to be. It is only meaningful to define what a gene does in a particular environment.
and
inheritance indicates that genes strongly influence average levels of a trait. Sapolsky notes that inheritance influences why humans are smarter than turnips! Which is not typically as interesting as why one human is smarter than another -- which is indicated by the trait's heritability.
differs. Most behavioral genetics studies are
interested in heritability but research methods tend to
inflate heritability values because environmental effects
on genes will only be highlighted by comparing results
obtained in different environments. A study in a
single environment can't separate the genetic and
environmental contributions.
- There are ubiquitous
gene/environment interactions which alter the qualitative
effects of the gene:
- Phenylketonuria is lethal when the diet contains
phenylalanine AND the person has the mutation.
- Depression is a debilitating state which is facilitated by genetic predisposition - for example genes coding for relatively low serotonin levels; and an accumulation of traumatic events. There is evidence of shifts in the sleep/wake cycle in affected individuals (Dec 2015). The affected person will experience a pathological sense of loss of control, prolonged sadness, irritability, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and inability to experience pleasure. It affects 12% of men and 20% of women. It appears to be associated with androgen deprivation therapy treatment for prostate cancer (Apr 2016). Chronic stress depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine, biasing humans towards depression. Depression easily leads to following unhealthy pathways: drinking, overeating; which increase the risk of heart disease. It has been associated with an aging related B12 deficiency (Sep 2016). During depression, stress mediates inhibition of dopamine signalling. There is an association between depression and particular brain regions: Hippocampal dendrite and spine number reductions, Dorsal raphe nucleus linked to loneliness, Abnormalities of the ACC. Childhood adversity can increase depression risk by linking recollections of uncontrollable situations to overgeneralizations that life will always be terrible and uncontrollable. Treatments include: CBT, UMHS depression management. As of 2010 drug treatments take weeks to facilitate a response & many patients do not respond to the first drug applied, often prolonging the agony. Genomic predictions of which treatment will be effective have not been possible because: Not all clinical depressions are the same, a standard definition of drug response is difficult;
risk increases with certain mutations of the 5HTT gene
AND childhood
trauma includes different types of stressor: No mother, Unsupportive mother, paternal deprivation, Childhood poverty, [Observing ]violence, Natural disasters, Bullying; which impact development and produce adult problems.
- The adversities are stressful and alter stress physiology producing children and adults with elevated: Glucocorticoids, CRH and ACTH, Sympathetic nervous system activity. Early stress permanently impacts the brains ability to control glucocorticoid secretion. The more stressors experienced and the less protective factors, the less likely it is that the child will cope and become a resilient adult. The stressors expand the size and activity of the amygdala helping it ignore prefrontal cortex constraints. And they degrade the dopamine network through impacts to the development of the mesolimbic system and elevated adult glucocorticoids depleting dopamine.
- The problems include attachment issues and adults with: depression (dopamine depletion and lowered thresholds making adult stressors more influential), anxiety, substance abuse (dopamine depletion, excessive adult exposure to glucocorticoids increasing drug craving & poorly developed frontal cortex), impaired cognitive abilities especially frontocortical with impaired hippocampal-dependent learning, impaired impulse control (amygdala), impaired emotional control, antisocial behavior and violence, relationships that replicate the childhood adversities. Abused children who develop PTSD show decreased hippocampal volume. Glucocorticoids decrease hippocampal production of BDNF. Childhood poverty impacts development of the corpus callosum & ensures by kindergarten, poor marshmallow test performance. Childhood poverty increases impacts from environmental stressors: Toxins, Liquor stores instead of fresh food markets, No transport infrastructure, Limited jobs in the immediate vicinity, Little access to low cost capital, Low positions in all social hierarchies.
exposure.
- Higher IQ is associated with a mutation of FADS2 AND breast feeding is a mammalian adaptation. It provides highly effective nutrition, signalling, protection & controls for newborns, constructed by mothers during 200 million years of evolution. It includes: Lactose, Fats, Over 200 oligosaccharides, Antibodies, Bacteriophages, & Peptidoglycans; which support the initial adaptations of the mammalian newborn, including its microbiome.
.
Sapolsky concludes "it's not meaningful to ask what a
gene does, just what it does in a particular
environment."
Part 3: So what do genes actually have to do with behaviors
we're interested in?
Sapolsky notes that behavioral
genetics has beneficially incorporated molecular approaches.
But many interesting findings are complicated by gene/environment
interactions:
- Sapolsky warns that candidate studies usually identify
tiny effects. Genome wide studies show that behaviors
are influenced by huge numbers of genes. That results
in non-specificity and context dependency of gene
effects.
- Behavioral studies predict genes for low serotonin is a neurotransmitter. it is:
- Inversely associated with: human impulsive, cricket, mollusk, crustacean; aggression. Low levels of serotonin are associated with impulsive aggression ranging from psychological measures of hostility to overt violence and cognitive impulsivity and impulsive suicide.
- Nearly all synthesized in the Raphe nucleus. Tryptophan hydroxylase makes serotonin from the amino-acid tryptophan. Monoamine oxidase degrades serotonin. The serotonin receptor binds serotonin to initiate cross membrane signalling. The serotonin transporter actively removes serotonin from synapses. Reuptake is inhibited by SSRIs. Variants of the genes coding for these various enzymes alter the strength of their effects.
- Increasing serotonin signalling does not lessen impulsiveness in normal subjects but did in those prone to impulsivity. However, such experiments are fraught with complexity:
- Transient changes induced by drugs may adjust the immediate levels of serotonin but may not demonstrate structural effects.
- Gene variants likely produce structural changes in the developing brain.
- Effects monitored in experiments are often tiny.
- Behavioral changes: Violence, Arson, Exhibitionism; seen in different test subjects may be difficult to compare.
- Monoamine oxidase has high gene/environment interactions undermining heritability estimates. Its gene promotor is regulated by stress and glucocorticoids. So non genetic factors such as childhood adversity and adult provocation appear to be significant.
levels are
expected to be associated with impulsive aggression.
Molecular studies found high levels associated with
aggression but also suggested the serotonin system adapts to
the MAO-A is the gene for monoamine oxidase-A, the enzyme which degrades serotonin. The MAO-A gene promotor is regulated by stress and glococorticoids. knockouts and
mutations that remove or degrade monoamine oxidase-A, so
expected high levels of serotonin may be much lower!
And monoamine oxidase-A effects on behavior show strong
gene/environment interactions: Caspi2002 study by Duke's Avshalom Caspi and colleagues follows a large cohort of children from birth to age 26, monitoring genetics, upbringing, and adult behavior. Demonstrating strong gene/environment interactions MAO-A variant status AND a history of severe childhood abuse tripled the likelihood of antisocial behavior. .
- Genes generating lower dopamine is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling:
- Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
signaling are associated with sensation seeking, risk
taking, attentional problems, and extroversion:
- One of the five or more dopamine receptors, in biological cells these proteins are able to span the cell membrane and present an active site which is tailored to interact with a specific signal. When the receptor pairs with its signal, its overall shape changes resulting in changes in the part internal to the cell which can be relayed by the cells signalling infrastructure. In neuron synapses one type of receptor (fast) is associated with an ion channel. The other (slow) is associated with a signalling enzyme chain and modulates the neuron's response.
, DRD4 is dopamine receptor D4, which is found in the cortex and nucleus accumbens. It is very highly variable with more than 10 variants: 7R; in humans. , is the focus of
research. Variant DRD47R is a variant of dopamine receptor D4. 7R label reflects the presence of seven repeats of a variable section of the gene for D4. The frequency of the gene varies across populations and is associated with: human migration, & differences of collectivist (1%) and individualist (upto 70% in historically migratory) cultures. This gene variant produces a receptor protein which is relatively unresponsive to dopamine. Sapolsky explains it is associated with: ADHD, alcoholism, extroversion, financial risk taking, impulsivity, sensation & novelty seeking, promiscuity; modified by gene/environment interactions: - Children with 7R AND insecure attachment to their parents are less generous than average. Otherwise children with 7R are more generous.
- Students with 7R expressed the least interest in prosocial groups, unless given a religious prime in which case they were the most prosocial.
- People with 7R are relatively poor at gratification-postponement tasks IF AND ONLY IF they grew up poor.
is consistently associated with ADHD is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a chronic condition including hyperactivity, impulsiveness and low attention. Dopamine response profiles to temporal discounting tasks are abnormal for ADHD sufferers. Imaging studies show differences in the brains of ADHD sufferers. Stimulants have been found to have a calming effect on ADHD sufferers. Causally associated factors include: - Family history
- Genetics
- May be influenced by high doses of Tylenol during pregnancy (Sep 2016).
- Environmental factors - a consistant daily schedule, praise for good behavior, clear bondaries, enough sleep and limiting distractions are all part of behavioral therapy for ADHD.
- CNS developmental problems.
. But the
other effects are conditional on the environment.
Sapolsky notes D47Rs association
with individualism.
- Efficient COMT is catechol-O-methyltransferase which breaks down dopamine. The COMT gene has variants which alter dopamine signalling intensity. One variant is associated with a more efficient enzyme which is associated with: higher rates of extroversion, aggression, criminality, conduct disorder; but modified by gene/environment interactions:
- Highly efficient COMT variant is associated with anger traits WHEN there was childhood sexual abuse.
dopamine degradation genes are associated with
extroversion, aggression, criminality, and conduct
disorder. Anger is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater.
traits are conditional on childhood sexual abuse.
- Less efficient DAT is dopamine transporter, a monoamine transporter, which performs reuptake of dopamine from the synapse to the axon terminal. DAT genes include variants. Those with inefficient reuptake capabilities, which induce higher levels of synaptic dopamine, in the striatum are associated with people drawn to happy faces, repelled by angry faces, have a positive parenting style.
genes leave higher dopamine levels. People with
these genes in the striatum (basal ganglia) is a brain region which is important in learning motor habits. To do this the ventral striatum assigns values to winning.
are more social
signal oriented means people who: Are drawn more than average to happy faces, Are repelled by angry faces, Use positive parenting styles. . But the research is
inconsistent.
- Genes generating oxytocin is a peptide hormone which makes humans more prosocial to and socially competent in their in-group and more antisocial to everyone else. The effects are contingent; changing during stress and in the presence of a threatening outgroup. Oxytocin makes people look at eyes longer, encouraging improved accuracy at perceiving emotions. It enhances activity in the TPJ supporting modeling of other people's thinking. Dogs and their owners secrete oxytocin increasing the amount of eye contact between them. It is associated with pair bonding. It is central to female mammals wanting to nurse, nursing, and remembering their child. Its effects are context dependent and so is the regulation of the genes that control oxytocin. Variants of a gene CD38 which facilitates oxytocin secretion from neurons are associated with differing levels of activation of the fusiform face area when looking at faces. Sapolsky describes an oxytocin receptor gene variant that is associated with children showing: Extreme aggression, A callous unemotional style; foreshadowing adult psychopathy. And another receptor gene variant which is associated with childhood social disconnection and unstable adult relationships. Gene/environment interactions complicate the interpretation of the presence of particular gene variants. Hypothalamic neurons send projections to: ventral tegmentum which also becomes more receptive during child birth, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, amygdala where it inhibits the central amygdala suppressing fear & anxiety consistently in men while still allowing women to respond to threats to their infants, frontal cortex, olfactory network where it helps new rat mums to learn the smell of their offspring; where oxytocin prepares the brain for in-group bonding, out-grouping, birth and maternal behavior. Outside the brain hypothalamic neurons in females send oxytocin to the posterior pituitary where it enters the blood stream stimulating uterine contraction during labor & supporting milk production for weaning. Disorders associated with oxytocin abnormalities include ASD.
and vasopressin developed by duplication and subsequent mutation of the vasotocin gene, along with oxytocin, during the initial formation of mammals. It acts as a hormone regulating water retention in the kidneys. It supports paternal behavior stimulated by a female giving birth. Sex releases vasopressin in the nucleus accumbens of male prairie voles. And prairie voles have more receptors in the accumbens than other voles supporting their pair bonding. This situation is similar in bonobos relative to chimps where it encourages social bonding - but not monogamy. Vasopressin is made in hypothalamic neurons which project to the posterior pituitary for release as a hormone. It is also a neuropeptide transmitting from hypothalamic projections to the ventral tegmentum, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, amygdala, and frontal cortex. And it is made & secreted in other areas of the brain. Vasopressin enhances aggression in paternal prairie vole males. But the aggression is then maintained by social learning. affect prosociality is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act. .
Research indicates one oxytocin receptor gene variant is
associated with extreme aggression in children & adult
psychopathy. But no characterization of the variants
chemistry has been completed yet. Gene/environment
interactions occur:
- Less sensitive mothering is predicted by one variant
when coupled with childhood
adversity includes different types of stressor: No mother, Unsupportive mother, paternal deprivation, Childhood poverty, [Observing ]violence, Natural disasters, Bullying; which impact development and produce adult problems.
- The adversities are stressful and alter stress physiology producing children and adults with elevated: Glucocorticoids, CRH and ACTH, Sympathetic nervous system activity. Early stress permanently impacts the brains ability to control glucocorticoid secretion. The more stressors experienced and the less protective factors, the less likely it is that the child will cope and become a resilient adult. The stressors expand the size and activity of the amygdala helping it ignore prefrontal cortex constraints. And they degrade the dopamine network through impacts to the development of the mesolimbic system and elevated adult glucocorticoids depleting dopamine.
- The problems include attachment issues and adults with: depression (dopamine depletion and lowered thresholds making adult stressors more influential), anxiety, substance abuse (dopamine depletion, excessive adult exposure to glucocorticoids increasing drug craving & poorly developed frontal cortex), impaired cognitive abilities especially frontocortical with impaired hippocampal-dependent learning, impaired impulse control (amygdala), impaired emotional control, antisocial behavior and violence, relationships that replicate the childhood adversities. Abused children who develop PTSD show decreased hippocampal volume. Glucocorticoids decrease hippocampal production of BDNF. Childhood poverty impacts development of the corpus callosum & ensures by kindergarten, poor marshmallow test performance. Childhood poverty increases impacts from environmental stressors: Toxins, Liquor stores instead of fresh food markets, No transport infrastructure, Limited jobs in the immediate vicinity, Little access to low cost capital, Low positions in all social hierarchies.
.
- Aggression is predicted by one variant when coupled with
drinking.
- Seeking emotional support in times of stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis.
- The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
among
Americans, including Korean Americans, but not
Koreans!
- Genes
that control testosterone is a hormone secreted by the testes in response to stimulation from the hypothalamic/pituitary/testicular cascade, that makes humans more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status, according to Sapolsky. That means players of the Ultimatum Game, if previously given testosterone can become more generous. Testosterones effect is highly socially contextual so it may encourage acts of kindness or aggression (when challenged). The level of testosterone does not predict which individuals will be aggressive in: Birds, Fish, Mammals including primates. Genes impact the potency of testosterone by altering the enzymes that: Construct it, Convert it to estrogen, code the androgen receptor. This androgen receptor includes a variable polyglutamine repeat which alters the sensitivity to the testosterone signal. The more potent form is associated with boys showing more dramatic 'masculinization' of the cortex. But the detected genetic influences are small. Testosterone decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex and its functional coupling to the amygdala while increasing the coupling between the amygdala & the thalamus. Testosterone shortens the refactory period of amygdaloid & amygdaloid target neurons. This results in impulsive risk taking and more focus on unfamiliar faces and distrust of them. Testosterone increases activity in the ventral tegmentum projecting dopamine to enhance place preference. Winners of fights become more willing to fight in part due to testosterone increasing confidence and optimism and reducing fear and anxiety. And winning at: Chess, Athletics, Stock trades; induces the BNST to add testosterone receptors increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. People become overconfident and overly optimistic.
,
estrogens is a generic term for a number of related steroid hormones each of which works differently. Estrogen: - Contributes to maternal aggression but it can reduce aggression and enhance empathy, depending on brain state. There are two different estrogen receptor types which mediate these conflicting effects. The levels of each type of receptor is independently regulated. Different receptor variants are associated with:
- Higher rates of anxiety among women
- Higher rates of antisocial behavior and conduct disorder in men
and glucocorticoids are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017). .
- The testosterone receptor, in biological cells these proteins are able to span the cell membrane and present an active site which is tailored to interact with a specific signal. When the receptor pairs with its signal, its overall shape changes resulting in changes in the part internal to the cell which can be relayed by the cells signalling infrastructure. In neuron synapses one type of receptor (fast) is associated with an ion channel. The other (slow) is associated with a signalling enzyme chain and modulates the neuron's response.
gene alleles have been studied. They alter the
responsiveness of the receptor. Some research
associates the more potent receptor with violent crimes
and masculinization of the cortex is the main part of the cerebral cortex in mammals. It was originally thought to exist only in mammals but is also present in reptiles and birds buried behind other areas of the for-brain. The for-brain develops based on a genetic plan consistent across all vertebrates. The neocortex processes vision in the visual hierarchy V1, V2, V3 .. V5 ... V20; and language with areas including Wernicke's and Broca's with sensors in the inner ear. Primate species with bigger social groups have larger cortices. Human cortex size suggests traditional human cultures had an average size of 150 people. of adolescent in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
boys. High testosterone only associates with
aggression in that receptor variant. But Sapolsky
notes these associations are not very predictive.
- Different variants of the estrogen is a generic term for a number of related steroid hormones each of which works differently. Estrogen:
- Contributes to maternal aggression but it can reduce aggression and enhance empathy, depending on brain state. There are two different estrogen receptor types which mediate these conflicting effects. The levels of each type of receptor is independently regulated. Different receptor variants are associated with:
- Higher rates of anxiety among women
- Higher rates of antisocial behavior and conduct disorder in men
receptor, in biological cells these proteins are able to span the cell membrane and present an active site which is tailored to interact with a specific signal. When the receptor pairs with its signal, its overall shape changes resulting in changes in the part internal to the cell which can be relayed by the cells signalling infrastructure. In neuron synapses one type of receptor (fast) is associated with an ion channel. The other (slow) is associated with a signalling enzyme chain and modulates the neuron's response. are
associated with higher rates:
- Glucocorticoids gene/environment interactions have been
researched. The MR receptor gene allele AND
childhood abuse produce an amygdala that is hyper-reactive
to threat. Sapolsky notes research has looked at two
of the 20,000 human genes in a few of the astronomical
variety of environments. The situation is daunting!
- Instead of focusing where you already know there are a few
relevant genes, 'fishing expeditions' aim to find all
candidate genes from the genome. They commonly use GWAS is genome-wide association study which examines common genetic variants (mostly SNPs) of different individuals to find those common variants that are associated with a trait. Sample size has been made manageable by the HapMap SNP clustering strategy. To detect the uncommon variants with GWAS would be exponentially more costly and time consuming. So it can't be used to detect schizophrenia or autism SNPs which are associated with a significant reduction in reproductive fitness and will thus never become common in the population.
leveraging SNP is single nucleotide polymorphism where single base pairs have changed in two chromosomes of the same type. There are 10 million common SNPs in the human genome. There are a limited number of chromosomal types (Haplotypes). This results in SNPs clustering into packs. On average 30 to 40 SNPs travel together. Knowing one or two SNPs in a local neighborhood predicts the others that are likely to be present. clustering.
Sapolsky notes the huge level of researchers focused in this
area.
- He concludes "genes aren't about inevitability.
Instead they're about context-dependent tendencies,
propensities, potential, and vulnerabilities."
Centuries to
millennia before
Sapolsky notes that the cultures is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
that surround us have huge effects on how
individuals behave. These behaviors reflect the
culture the individuals were raised in as well as where they
live. He illustrates his case with:
- Gender differences in mathematics where the more gender
equality the less difference there was in math scores with
Iceland's girls scoring better than boys, while most other
countries have boys scoring better especially in unequal
cultures like Turkey's.
- Earlier adoption of the hoe over the plow predicts
gender equality in today's culture.
- Long term impacts - population density in 1500
significantly predicts how authoritarian a government was in
2000.
He explores where
we are now and how we probably
got here: Patterns of cultural variation effect behaviors,
Culture & biology coevolve, and Ecology effects
culture.
Life is
unrecognizably different, depending on which culture you
were born into:
- Collectivist
cultures compared to individualist cultures ON AVERAGE:
- Collectivists
seek harmony, interdependence, conformity, needs of the
group guide behavior; judge themselves based on social
interactions. Individuals don't want to fall behind
the group. Influencing someone else is stressful
with increased glucocorticoid are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017).
secretion. When looking at calm facial expressions
Chinese activate the mesolimbic
dopamine pathway includes projections between the tegmentum and the accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus; . Problem-solving is more
relational and uses spatial strategies assuming
interactions with the environment: friction; and excel at
relative assessments. Sensory information is
processed holistically with East Asians first scanning the
whole picture. Collectivist cultures are responses
to:
- Individualists
seek autonomy, personal achievement, uniqueness, needs
& rights of the individual; describing themselves
based on intrinsic factors. Individuals aim to get
ahead. And when looking at pictures of themselves
they strongly activate the medial
prefrontal cortex in Buckner's fMRI based analysis is part of the brain's default mode network. It facilitates the flexible use of information during the construction of self-relevant mental simulations. Nauta considered its ventromedial part as participating in the limbic system. With the medial temporal lobe it converges on important integration nodes: posterior cingulate cortex. . Being influenced by others
is stressful with increased glucocorticoid are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017).
secretion. When looking at excited facial
expressions European Americans activate the mesolimbic
dopamine pathway. Problem-solving is more linear and
uses linguistic strategies assuming intrinsic properties:
weight, density; and excel at absolute assessments.
Sensory information is processed in a focused manner with
Westerners first looking at a picture's center. US
individualism is a response to:
- Encouraging immigration which selects for independent
people seeking to leave their former culture. DRD4
(7R) occurs in 23% of Europeans & European
Americans.
- Produce different moral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning.
systems,
enforced by shame is an emotional reaction to being discovered cheating on a friend. in
collectivist cultures and guilt is an emotion which alerts us to the risk of cheating on a friend. To be culturally effective the individuals must have respect for the law.
in individual ones. There is more in-group bias in
collectivist cultures - express high empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. &
activation of theory
of mind of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony. for in-group observed as in pain amplifies the aggression response of people by interoceptive signalling of brain regions providing social emotions including the PAG projecting to the amygdala; making aggressive people more so and less aggressive people less so. Pain is the main reason people visit the ED in the US. .
- It takes one generation for descendants of East Asian
immigrants to America to be as individualist as European
Americans.
- Pastoralists &
Southerners
- Nomadic herdsmen have cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
similarities attributed to their tough environments and
minimal rule of law and centralized government.
Thieves can easily steel a pastoralist's herd.
Sapolsky suggests this asymmetric issue results in:
- Sapolsky explains that people from the old South of the
US have a similar violent honor culture that results in
far more honor killings. And he notes with caveats,
historian David Hackett Fischer proposed this culture was
due to the large numbers of herders from Scotland, Ireland
and northern England.
- Violence Turned
Inward
- Sapolsky explores honor killings where he suggests girls
are considered to have tarnished the reputation of the
family by refusing
an arranged marriage. So they are executed by
blood relatives,
the act is rationalized religiously and carried out
openly, ignoring any cross cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
tensions on
the girls.
- Stratified
Versus Egalitarian Cultures is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
- how unequally resources: land, food, goods, power,
prestige; are distributed.
- Hunter-gatherer societies are considered
egalitarian. Agriculture allowed surpluses to
enable
Deaton describes the wellbeing
of people around the world today. He explains the powerful benefit of public
health strategies and the effect of growth in
material wellbeing but also the corrosive effects of
aid.
Following our summary of Deaton's arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. The situation he describes is complex including
powerful amplifiers, alignment and incentives that overlap
broadly with other RSS summaries of adaptations of: The
biosphere, Politics, Economics,
Philosophy and Health care.
inequality.
- Sapolsky argues that stratified agricultural societies
are better able to cope with unstable environments that
develop resource shortages - sequestoring mortality in the
lower classes -- and leveraging their chain of command to
support conquest. But he notes hunter-gatherers can
move in search of a better environment.
- Westernized societies are strikingly different in the
level of inequality. Saplosky notes higher income inequality
correlates with less social capital is the collective quantity of resources such as trust, reciprocity & cooperation according to Sapolsky.
and is associated with high rates of bullying is a complex childhood adversity. Sapolsky explains that targets of bullying aren't selected at random. And bullies often come from families with single mothers or younger parents with low educational and economic prospects. Sapolsky notes that someone who bullies and is also bullied is likely to be a real mess as an adult.
and
antisocial punishment. The powerful become more
ambivalent of the weak, and less kind. The poor
respond to signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy.
of inequality by becoming more aggressive to one
another. Those who feel are models including ratings of situations which are evolutionarily associated with emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. poor become
less healthy: Increased stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
,
Resources shifted into private
hands reducing public health is the proactive planning, coordination and execution of strategies to improve and safeguard the wellbeing of the public. Its global situation is discussed in The Great Escape by Deaton. Public health in the US is coordinated by the PHS federally but is mainly executed at the state and local levels. Public health includes: - Awareness campaigns about health threatening activities including: Smoking, Over-eating, Alcohol consumption, Contamination with poisons, Joint damage from over-exercise;
- Research, monitoring and control of disease agents, processes and vectors by agencies including the CDC.
- Monitoring of the public's health by institutes including the NIH.
- Development, deployment and maintenance of infrastructure including: sewers, water plants and pipes.
- Development, deployment and maintenance of vaccination strategies.
- Regulation and constraint of foods, drugs and devices by agencies including the FDA.
investments.
- Population:
size, density, heterogeneity
- Sapolsky notes more of humanity are living in urban
cities. He argues these are beneficial with
healthier, wealthier is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. ,
better
This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
networked, more innovative is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. people
than in rural populations. And the urban living
builds a different brain:
- Where the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala:
- Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
is more reactive to stressors.
- This must cope with regularly encountering strangers
that will never be seen again. Sapolsky stresses
this is a totally new scenario. So growing cultures is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
invented
new mechanisms:
- Escalating punishment for norm violations as the
population grows, applied by objective third parties -
Sapolsky argues this is why moralistic
punishing gods appeared.
- Increasingly dense populations develop tight
cultures: Autocratic, repressive, orthodox; and
density exaggerates existing social tendencies.
But Sapolsky notes density is not synonymous with
aggression in rats or humans.
- People from different cultures intermixing need
clear barriers to maintain peaceful
coexistence.
- The Residues of Cultural Crises
- Oh, Why Not: Religion
- Sapolsky notes humanity has invented thousands of
religions. He draws out some patterns:
- Desert cultures is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
associate with monotheistic religions
- Rain forest dwellers have polytheistic
- Nomadic pastoralists gods value war & battle
- Agriculturalists gods alter the weather
- Large
cultures with anonymous acts have moralizing
gods.
- He concludes:
- A religion reflects the values of the culture that
invented or adopted it, and it transmits those values
- Religions foster the best and worst of our behaviors
- It's complicated.
Hobbes or
Rousseau- how we got there
Sapolsky explains that contemporary evaluations of the
applicability of these philosophies leverage data:
- Archaeological
- Contemporary humans living in pre-state tribal societies
But there are definitional disagreements. University
of Illinois's Lawrence Keeley and Harvard's
Steven Pinker argue archaeological evidence of war is broad,
ancient, & barbaric and violence is declining. They
argue that archaeologists are ignoring the evidence to pacify
the past. Rutgers R. Brian Ferguson strikes back arguing:
Their evidence does not show what they claim and they
cherry-picked their data.
Keeley, Pinker & Santa Fe Institute's Samuel Bowles conclude
from looking at contemporary hunter-gatherers: New Guinea:
Gebusi, Mae Enga; & Borneo head hunters, Maasai & Zulu
warriors from Africa, Amazonians: Waorani, Jivaro; Brazilian and
Venezuelan Yanomamos; that warfare is nearly universal.
Anthropologists again argue there was cherry-picking with Global
surveys showing less violence. There are issues with the
statistical analyses. And other studies do not find the
levels of violence of the initial reports.
Sapolsky argues 95 to 99% of hominin history was spent in small
nomadic bands that foraged for edible plants and hunted
cooperatively. Few records exist: cave paintings from
forty thousand years ago which show hunting but not war.
So most people infer from the current day hunter-gatherer tribes
the: Hazda, Mbuti, Batwa, Gunwinggi, Andaman Islanders, Batak,
Semang and Inuit cultures. Mostly the men discuss how
fantastic their last hunt was while generations of females
provide the calories from foraging. Most hunter-gatherers:
Sapolsky writes the evidence
suggests a mixture of Hobbes & Rousseau. He does not
consider hunter-gatherers as angels but sees war as rare until
the nomadic lifestyle was abandoned.
So Sapolsky suggests agriculture/herding was one of the all-time
human blunders because it:
He concludes by asserting the most consequential aspect of the
coevolution of brains and culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
is childhood,
when cultures inculcate individuals. The delayed maturation in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
of
the frontal cortex of the cerebral cortex is at the front of the brain. It includes the: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex. Sapolsky asserts it makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. The frontal cortex supports working memory to sustain focus on a task. It also coordinates the strategic actions necessary to achieve success. It provides impulse control, regulation of emotion, and willpower. The prefrontal cortex maintains focus by deprioritizing currently irrelevant streams of information. The frontal cortex tracks rules. Over a lifetime that builds into a costly activity. Once it tires responses become less prosocial. But practice shifts operation of tasks to the cerebellum. The frontal cortex signals the tegmentum and accumbens with the conclusions of its expectancy/discrepancy calculations. The frontal lobe provides executive function, considering bits of information, assessing patterns and then prioritizing the strategies. The frontal lobe is the most recent part of the brain to evolve and involves a disproportionate percentage of primate-unique genes in its development and operation. It does not complete development until the mid-20s. It includes spindle neurons. It is easily damaged. Sapolsky (Nauta) notes that its ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a quasi-member of the limbic system.
allows for sculpting
by the environment including cultural norms.
The Evolution of
Behavior
Sapolsky asserts that only This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution
can explain behavior. He argues like anatomy and
physiology, behaviors evolve.
Kin selection is a strategy of selfish genes, which aims to maximize gene survival & replication across all the bodies where a copy of the gene probably exists: relatives. Altruism is beneficial to gene replication in this situation. Love supports the agent's prioritization of appropriate altruistic strategies. Sapolsky describes an array of strategies used to identify kin: - Genetically shaped pheromonal signatures. Rodents leverage the immune systems MHC super variable gene regions to develop unique signals. The more similar the signals are the closer is the relative. Pregnancy triggers adult neurogenesis in the olfactory system of rat mothers to allow them to learn the smell of their newborn.
- Imprinting on the female whose birdsong a chick heard while still in the egg
- Degree of paternalism depending on likelihood of being the father in primates
- Humans use cognition
allows
relatives to group
together to help their genes persist into the next
generation. Sapolsky notes that across species mating
third-cousins is an evolved behavior. Women prefer the
smell of moderately related over unrelated men.
Identifying kin works differently across species. Human
kin recognition is mainly cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. .
Sapolsky notes it is far from accurate which is
significant.
Non-kin can also evolve to cooperate through reciprocal altruism benefits another organism at a cost to the behaver. It is differentiated from kin altruism, by Williams and Trivers, since it can apply between unrelated individuals. It can be induced by natural selection when there is mutual survival benefit in group activities and cheating can be detected and discouraged. Humans, leveraging the cognitive niche, can particularly easily, build an evolved amplifier, through sharing information at little cost and significant benefit. But African savanna hunters similarly gain from sharing large game meat with other un-related altruistic group members since the meat would otherwise spoil before it could be eaten. .
Sapolsky notes the strategies
to maximize cooperation and limit cheating have been
investigated using game
theory investigates the optimal strategies for cooperating. The iterative Prisoner's Dilemma scenario was shown by Axelrod & Hamilton to reward a Tit for Tat strategy with perfect signals. An effective way to limit the risks of initiating Tit for Tat in a potential sea of Always Defectors is a genetically encoded signal of cooperation such as the green-beard gene. Other evolved strategies include genetic algorithms. including Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
genetic
algorithms.
Sapolsky views the three foundations of behavioral evolution:
individual This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
natural & This page describes the consequences of the asymmetries caused
by genotypic traits
creating a phenotypic signal in males and selection activity
in the female - sexual selection.
The impact of this asymmetry is to create a powerful alternative
to natural selection with sexual
selection's leverage of positive returns.
The mechanisms are described.
sexual selection, kin selection,
reciprocal altruism; as a lens to understand:
- Pair-bonding have similar body size, coloration and musculature. Sapolsky's list of pair-bonding primates includes: marmosets, tamarins, owl monkeys, gibbons; as well as swans, jackals, beavers, prairie voles. Selection has supported evolved capture of minimally aggressive strategies that do not depend on fighting muscle:
- All males reproduce a few times.
- Males invest in parenting of the children - if he thinks they are his. That is costly so they are choosy about which females to mate with and may pair-bond.
- Females look for mates whose behavior is: stable, affiliative; and who have good parenting skills. Pair-bonding male birds are seen to display parenting skills during courtship.
- Females compete aggressively with one another to gain access to an attractive male. And they use cuckolding strategies to gain access to great genes and parenting skills.
versus tournament
species have asymmetric sizes, and musculature. Males may be much bigger and more muscular than females and have conspicuous facial markings. Sapolsky's tournament primates include: baboons, mandrills, rhesus monkeys, vervets, and chimps. And he additionally lists gazelles, lions, sheep, peacocks, & elephant seals. Selection has supported evolved capture of fighting skills and display. Such males: - Use aggressive conflict to obtain high dominance rankings.
- A small percentage of high rank males do all the mating. They will mate with any female anytime. So they have evolved to invest in larger testes and higher sperm counts.
- Males do no investment in parenting of their children.
- Females look for signals of good genes. This encourages sexual selection of signals of male health, status and dominance.
- Females don't compete with each other since they will all breed with the high rank males.
- two evolved social systems that demonstrate
the internal logic with which evolved traits
cluster.
- Parent-offspring
conflict is Robert Trivers theory to explain the allocation of parental resources to various offspring, from the implications of genetics on the family. Observing that children want to take more than what their parents want to give Trivers concluded a parent should aim to transfer resources depending on the relative benefits to each child and the costs, since each child has the same percentage of the parent's genes. But each child shares only fifty percent of their genes with their siblings so should aim to get resources until the benefit to the others is twice the cost to the child. And the parent may keep back some resources for allocation to further planned offspring. A variety of conflicts ensue:
- In the womb the fetus tries to capture nutrients from the mother at the expense of future children. It ties up the mother's insulin to increase the blood sugar available to it and placing the mother at risk of diabetes. Fathers can assist their offspring in this 'fight with the mother' by supplying imprinted genes that help the offspring capture resources.
- At birth mothers must decide whether to let the baby die. This practice is cross cultural but is considered a depravity by present Western culture. That is probably due to the West having captured a majority of the world's resources for centuries.
- Infants use cuteness to encourage parental investment. A mother's attachment delays until it is clear that the baby will live.
- Infants cry to demand milk. Until weaned the mother won't ovulate limiting her future reproductive potential.
- Young children are in conflict with their father over access to their mother.
- Children are in a position to develop paradoxical tactics to push for more resource allocation.
- Older children may have sexual conflicts with their parents, especially their fathers. Fathers compete with sons for sexual partners in many societies. But this competition is not for their mother.
- Adult children may conflict with their parents over allocation of family resources. This has led to murder.
- Parents attempt to train children to assist the parent's social interests. The implication is that children are wary of their parent's suggestions and typically pay more attention to the advice of their peer group according to Judith Harris.
- Parents sell or trade their children. The price paid for a daughter will likely depend on her virginity. Hence fathers take an interest in their daughters' sexuality.
- which occurs because parents and
offspring don't have exactly the same genes.
- Intersexual genetic conflict - where tournament species
males and females fight arms
races, in a war where both sides use the strategy of development and use of advanced weapon systems to gain an advantage, each advance induces the other side to respond with its own asymmetric advances. Neither side will necessarily gain the upper hand in which case the weapon systems themselves advance rapidly with little direct benefit for the combatants.
with imprinted
genes operate differently depending from which parent they originate. Such genes may only be activated if they come from the father, or the mother. Harvard evolutionary biologist David Haig realized there was an arms race between the parents. Sapolsky describes an example where some paternal genes code for highly active growth factors while the maternal genes code for unresponsive ones. A paternally derived gene expressed in the brain makes newborns more avid nursers. The maternal gene counters this. Tournament species select for imprinted genes while pair-bonding species don't. .
But he notes that neo-group
selection is David Sloan Wilson and subsequently Harvard's E.O. Wilson's, multi-level evolutionary selection mechanism. It is seen to operate in humans and is explained by Tit for Tat style cooperation and prosociality. is also a significant force in evolving humans'
behaviors.
Still Sapolsky stresses that we are not descended from any of
the other living species. He reviews a variety of measures
that all suggest we are profoundly confused. We exhibit
behaviors: Violence driven by male-male competition for
reproductive access to females, Violence against females for
coercive sex or punishing rejection; that make sense to an elephant seal or a
baboon have asymmetric sizes, and musculature. Males may be much bigger and more muscular than females and have conspicuous facial markings. Sapolsky's tournament primates include: baboons, mandrills, rhesus monkeys, vervets, and chimps. And he additionally lists gazelles, lions, sheep, peacocks, & elephant seals. Selection has supported evolved capture of fighting skills and display. Such males: - Use aggressive conflict to obtain high dominance rankings.
- A small percentage of high rank males do all the mating. They will mate with any female anytime. So they have evolved to invest in larger testes and higher sperm counts.
- Males do no investment in parenting of their children.
- Females look for signals of good genes. This encourages sexual selection of signals of male health, status and dominance.
- Females don't compete with each other since they will all breed with the high rank males.
. But other behaviors don't fit that mold:
People forgoing reproduction, Individuals sacrificing themselves
for strangers.
Sapolsky sees broad evidence of human kin selection. But
there are complications:
- Clan fighting occurs - but many wars show evidence of
families fighting on both sides.
- Intra-family individual violence occurs
- Patricide occurs, typically as revenge for abuse and
fratricide.
- Parents killing children because of mental illness, abuse
that unintentionally turned fatal
- Money is bequeathed to non-kin. Sapolsky judges that
our cognitive based kin assessment helps explain these
situations. If you 'feel' like a relative to me you
are a relative. And we can be manipulated into feeling
more or less related to someone than we really
are.
Sapolsky
asserts reciprocal altruism and neo-group selection drive:
rules, laws, treaties, penalties, social conscience, inner
voice, morals, ethics, etc. He notes that a study of
present day hunter-gatherers showed, only 40% of people within
the bands are blood relatives. So we potentially evolved
from hunter-gatherers that were driven by reciprocal
altruism. And neo-group selection is at the core of
cooperation and competition among human groups and cultures is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
.
Sapolsky notes that these gene driven behavioral arguments were
intended to be threatened by Punctuated
Equilibrium is Steven Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge's proposal about how evolution occurs. They suggested that most of the time 'nothing happens' and then there are intermittent rapid lurches. The idea is analogous to Schumpeter's waves of creative destruction. Complex adaptive systems will operate this way driven by the underlying slow mutations of the germ-line schemata and the action of infrastructure and evolved amplifiers. . While Dawkins
dismissed
macro mutations and species selection, there is evidence
of rapid gene spreading and our understanding of transcription-factors are enzymes which associate with a transcription complex to bind to the DNA and control its transcription and hence translation into proteins. The regulation of DNA transcription and protein synthesis are reviewed by Tsonis. Transcription factors allow environmental state to become reflected in the control of DNA transcription. Transcription factors can regulate multiple genes, allowing network effects & multiple transcription factors can regulate a gene allowing sophisticated control processes. In AWF the transcription, translation and deployment infrastructure of the eukaryotic cell has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. ,
transposons are regions of DNA which are copied and inserted into other areas of the DNA schemata. Their effect and existence was first noted by Barbara McClintock. Plants, when under stress, utilize transposons to rapidly evolve their genomes. Animal's immune systems and neuronal stem cells when forming memories, also leverage transposons. and other
This page reviews the strategy of setting up an arms race. At its
core this strategy depends on being able to alter, or take
advantage of an alteration in, the genome
or equivalent. The situation is illustrated with examples
from biology, high tech and politics.
amplifiers enables us to accept
macro-mutational events. Still Sapolsky concludes that
depending on what genes are being affected, gradualism and
punctuated change occur in evolution without the edifice
collapsing.
Steven Jay Gould's tinkering exaptation, initially termed preadaptation refers to the coopting of some function for a new use. allows
evolution to produce good enough solutions. They suggest
other traits were purely spandrels are Steven Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin's evolved traits that appear as side effects of exaptations and have no selection value themselves. A spandrel is an architectural term for the space between two arches. Gould and Lenontin's point was that adaptationists would suggest spandrels were created to provide a medium for the artwork that was often placed on them because they were there. .
Sapolsky suggests there are less adaptations than
socio-biologists once asserted and less spandrels than Gould and
other critics argued, with reality anchored in the complexity of
evolution.
Us Versus Them
Sapolsky explores our tendency to form 'Us' versus 'Them'
dichotomies and to favor the former, as detected by the IAT is the implicit association test:
- Pictures of likely in-group and out-group members and
positive and negative words are displayed on a computer
screen
- Sometimes the viewer is asked "If you see an in-group
member or positive word press the red button; if you see
an out-group or negative word press the blue
button."
- Alternatively the viewer may be asked "If you see an
in-group member or negative term press the red button; if
you see an out-group or positive word press the blue
button."
- The discordance of the second rule causes a pause of a
few milliseconds before the viewer presses a button.
Over a series of views a pattern of delay emerges
indicating the viewer's bias.
. He notes how this
grouping process is supported by the brain's architecture and
happens rapidly:
- Within 50
milliseconds exposure to a face of someone from a
different race: Activates the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala:
- Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
, Inhibits
activation of the fusiform is a region of the brain which supports advanced mechanisms of shape recognition and implements the early stages of reading. Subliminal priming with words did not depend on the shape of the word. The fusiform gyrus was able to process the abstract identity of a word without caring if it was upper or lower case. While high up in the cortex it can operate below the level of conscious experience. It contributes to social emotions with: - Its face area being more activated by faces with in-group skin color.
- It activating when shown pictures of cars in automobile aficionados.
- It activating when shown pictures of birds in birdwatchers; since it really recognizes examples of items from an individual's emotionally salient categories.
.
- At a similar speed the brain groups faces by: Gender,
Social status;
- Oxytocin is a peptide hormone which makes humans more prosocial to and socially competent in their in-group and more antisocial to everyone else. The effects are contingent; changing during stress and in the presence of a threatening outgroup. Oxytocin makes people look at eyes longer, encouraging improved accuracy at perceiving emotions. It enhances activity in the TPJ supporting modeling of other people's thinking. Dogs and their owners secrete oxytocin increasing the amount of eye contact between them. It is associated with pair bonding. It is central to female mammals wanting to nurse, nursing, and remembering their child. Its effects are context dependent and so is the regulation of the genes that control oxytocin. Variants of a gene CD38 which facilitates oxytocin secretion from neurons are associated with differing levels of activation of the fusiform face area when looking at faces. Sapolsky describes an oxytocin receptor gene variant that is associated with children showing: Extreme aggression, A callous unemotional style; foreshadowing adult psychopathy. And another receptor gene variant which is associated with childhood social disconnection and unstable adult relationships. Gene/environment interactions complicate the interpretation of the presence of particular gene variants. Hypothalamic neurons send projections to: ventral tegmentum which also becomes more receptive during child birth, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, amygdala where it inhibits the central amygdala suppressing fear & anxiety consistently in men while still allowing women to respond to threats to their infants, frontal cortex, olfactory network where it helps new rat mums to learn the smell of their offspring; where oxytocin prepares the brain for in-group bonding, out-grouping, birth and maternal behavior. Outside the brain hypothalamic neurons in females send oxytocin to the posterior pituitary where it enters the blood stream stimulating uterine contraction during labor & supporting milk production for weaning. Disorders associated with oxytocin abnormalities include ASD.
exaggerates
'Us' versus 'Them': promotes trust and distrust are evolved responses to sham emotions. During a friendship where no sham emotions have been detected trust will build up. , generosity,
cooperation with 'Us' but negative acts to
'Them'.
Bristol's Tajfel showed 'Us' versus 'Them' formed rapidly in
minimal group paradigms, demonstrating prosociality is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act. requires
only meaningless traits for group identification. It
emerges before age three. Sapolsky argues this augments
genetic green-beard genes code for expressing an evolved signal, such as a green-beard, and cooperating with other "green-beard displaying" people. Humans can adjust how we view these signals and so how we define us and them.
effects which depend on
both kin
selection is a strategy of selfish genes, which aims to maximize gene survival & replication across all the bodies where a copy of the gene probably exists: relatives. Altruism is beneficial to gene replication in this situation. Love supports the agent's prioritization of appropriate altruistic strategies. Sapolsky describes an array of strategies used to identify kin: - Genetically shaped pheromonal signatures. Rodents leverage the immune systems MHC super variable gene regions to develop unique signals. The more similar the signals are the closer is the relative. Pregnancy triggers adult neurogenesis in the olfactory system of rat mothers to allow them to learn the smell of their newborn.
- Imprinting on the female whose birdsong a chick heard while still in the egg
- Degree of paternalism depending on likelihood of being the father in primates
- Humans use cognition
and reciprocal altruism benefits another organism at a cost to the behaver. It is differentiated from kin altruism, by Williams and Trivers, since it can apply between unrelated individuals. It can be induced by natural selection when there is mutual survival benefit in group activities and cheating can be detected and discouraged. Humans, leveraging the cognitive niche, can particularly easily, build an evolved amplifier, through sharing information at little cost and significant benefit. But African savanna hunters similarly gain from sharing large game meat with other un-related altruistic group members since the meat would otherwise spoil before it could be eaten. ;
with psychological equivalents.
Sapolsky
suggests what
helps define a culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
is a standardized process binding arbitrary
markers: dress, ornamentation, accent; to normally invisible
meaningful traits: Values, beliefs, attributions, ideologies;
allowing a flag to become a symbol
to die for.
Sapolsky notes that the 'Us' process inflates the merits of
in-group core values: correct, wise, moral, and worthy; and
arbitrary markers. Feelings about 'Us' focus on shared
obligations, willingness and mutuality from a high frequency of
iterative
positive interactions and the power to punish defections.
But the prosociality for the in-group is bound quite
abstractly. Sapolsky also reports that we act to improve
things for 'Us' AND to maximize the gap with 'Them'.
Maximizing the gap can result in focusing on loyalty rather than
equality. An in-group member, who airs the group's dirty
laundry generating a negative stereotype and in-group shame is an emotional reaction to being discovered cheating on a friend. , will provoke high
levels of punishment as a signal, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy.
to outsiders. When someone leaves 'Us' to join 'Them' it
may invoke stiff punishment if the commitment to 'Us' is based
on sacred values rather than a contract.
Similarly Sapolsky sees patterns in how we view 'Them':
- Threatening [to the hierarchy],
angry is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater.
, untrust and distrust are evolved responses to sham emotions. During a friendship where no sham emotions have been detected trust will build up. worthy; is seen
consistently. Or
- Disgusting is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala.
, where we
add moral and aesthetic to most
animal's basic gustatory disgust. 'Us' versus 'Them'
markers enable the insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
to become active. Establishing that 'They' eat
disgusting things assists with deciding that 'They' also
have disgusting ethical ideas. People with a low threshold for interpersonal
disgust have strong out-group views.
- Ridiculous
- An
emotionally simple homogeneous group with less sensitivity
to pain amplifies the aggression response of people by interoceptive signalling of brain regions providing social emotions including the PAG projecting to the amygdala; making aggressive people more so and less aggressive people less so. Pain is the main reason people visit the ED in the US. . Rather
than individuals they are an interchangeable, immutable,
primitive, icky essence. This essentialism thrives
with bad relations or few interactions with the
out-group.
- Out-grouping is emotion are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism.
based with limited cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen.
cover added [later] if necessary.
- The conscious judgements about 'Them' are manipulated in
experiments by primes: 'loyalty' or 'equality'; and in real
world situations.
- Groups tend to be more hostile than individuals. But
hostile intergroup relations tend to correlate with reduced
intragroup hostility.
Sapolsky notes that humans display unique aspects of 'Us' versus
'Them'. They can maintain:
- Multiple categories of 'Us' and crucially which 'Us' is
most important constantly shifts.
- Taxonomies of 'Them' -
- 'Us' versus 'Them' while feeling badly and concealing it -
Kenneth & Mamie Clark's "doll studies" showed young
children with IAT biases towards valuing the dominant
group. Careful suppression of revealing ones actual
categorization depends on suppression by the PFC is prefrontal cortex which is:
- The front part of the frontal
lobe of the cerebral
cortex. It evolved
most recently. During adolescence
when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent
strategies: ventral
striatum. The PFC has been implicated in
planning, working memory:
dorsolateral;
decision making: Orbitofrontal
cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC
circuits track internal reward
driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The
PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or
restraint, especially between cognition
and emotions. It imposes
an overarching strategy for managing working memory.
It is essential for thinking about multiple items with
different labels. It includes neurons that are
interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat.
Once it has made a decision it signals
the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease
excitability of the PFC.
.
- Cultural mechanisms that alter the sharpness of 'Us'
versus 'Them' - Cuing and priming alter 'Them'
categorizations. It is easier to manipulate warmth
than competency ratings. The rank order of our
multiple 'Us' versus 'Them' catagories allows automatic
shifting: Race to shirt color, Math performance association
with gender or ethnicity. Increasing the significance
of hierarchies can leverage stereotypes
of high warmth low competency or low warmth low competency of Fiske argues there are two axes used to classify out-groups: Warmth - is the individual or group a friend or enemy, nice or nasty? Competence - how effective are they at performing their goal? Sapolsky explains this model results in 'Us' being judged warm and competent and viewed with pride while homeless drug-addicts are judged cold and incompetent and disgusting. The elderly and handicapped are classified as warm and incompetent and are pitied. Ruling classes are typically judged cold but competent by the rest and are envied.
increases 'Them'ing. But individuals respond
differently to the signals based on: SDO is social-dominance orientation which is:
- How much someone values: Status
and dominance.
& RWA (right-wing authoritarianism) is:
- An assessment of how much a person values centralized
authority, the rule of law, and convention.
- Has been experimentally correlated with low IQ. Sapolsky
explains
simple answers are ideal for people with poor abstract
reasoning skills.
. High-SDO
people's prejudices increase the most under threat, accept
bias against low-status out-groups and males tolerate
sexism.
Hierarchy,
Obedience, and Resistance
Sapolsky argues that hierarchies are
about our automatic tendency to favor people close in rank to
us over those who are distant. And he notes that as
with 'Us' versus 'Them' these
tendencies appear:
have intertwined cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen.
& affective are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism.
underpinnings and the categorizations
and status is a publically accepted, signal that one possesses assets: wealth, beauty, talent, expertise, access & trust of powerful people; to be able to help others. assessments
interact. But Sapolsky notes hierarchy leads in a
different & uniquely human direction:
Nature and
varieties of hierarchies
Across species hierarchies:
- Provide benefits to individuals within them: No risk of
injury if conflict is resolved by rank, high dominance
individuals gain access to more resources.
- Can be stable depending on situation. Brains use
different networks to handle stable and unstable
situations.
- Provide efficient conflict resolution guidelines
- Can be simple: Marmosets have an alpha and everyone else;
or
- Graduated: baboons & ravens - who both attend to
signals about rank in their own and adjacent groups and
model expected outcomes. Baboons interact differently
depending on the other baboons rank.
- May differ by gender
- While female baboons inherit their rank,
for males, who join the
group as adolescents in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged encouraging the adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents:
- Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
,
rank is captured by fighting and threats, and is
maintained by social skills.
- Will differ depending on social group dynamics: Fission-fusion come together for some activities and split apart for others. Social complexity is higher in fission-fusion species which require bigger brains to cope. Examples include:
- Baboons spend the morning, evening and night in a large structured group. But they forage at midday in small groups. Fission-fussion primates include: baboons, chimps, bonobos, orangutans, spider monkeys.
- Hyenas hunt in groups but scavenge individually
- Wolfs scavenge in groups but hunt individually
presents situations of additional social complexity and so
supports This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution of a bigger neocortex is the main part of the cerebral cortex in mammals. It was originally thought to exist only in mammals but is also present in reptiles and birds buried behind other areas of the for-brain. The for-brain develops based on a genetic plan consistent across all vertebrates. The neocortex processes vision in the visual hierarchy V1, V2, V3 .. V5 ... V20; and language with areas including Wernicke's and Broca's with sensors in the inner ear. Primate species with bigger social groups have larger cortices. Human cortex size suggests traditional human cultures had an average size of 150 people. . The
larger the group is, the more the PFC is prefrontal cortex which is:
- The front part of the frontal
lobe of the cerebral
cortex. It evolved
most recently. During adolescence
when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent
strategies: ventral
striatum. The PFC has been implicated in
planning, working memory:
dorsolateral;
decision making: Orbitofrontal
cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC
circuits track internal reward
driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The
PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or
restraint, especially between cognition
and emotions. It imposes
an overarching strategy for managing working memory.
It is essential for thinking about multiple items with
different labels. It includes neurons that are
interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat.
Once it has made a decision it signals
the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease
excitability of the PFC.
and superior
temporal gyrus is involved in: - Auditory processing including the primary auditory cortex that maps sound frequencies, and Wernicke's area
- Social cognition including: theory of mind.
thicken and couple.
Rank and
hierarchy in humans
Human hierarchies resemble those of other
species:
- Size of group network can be large and expand the vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
, orbital PFC is prefrontal cortex which is:
- The front part of the frontal
lobe of the cerebral
cortex. It evolved
most recently. During adolescence
when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent
strategies: ventral
striatum. The PFC has been implicated in
planning, working memory:
dorsolateral;
decision making: Orbitofrontal
cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC
circuits track internal reward
driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The
PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or
restraint, especially between cognition
and emotions. It imposes
an overarching strategy for managing working memory.
It is essential for thinking about multiple items with
different labels. It includes neurons that are
interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat.
Once it has made a decision it signals
the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease
excitability of the PFC.
, amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
and theory of mind of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony.
related skills.
- Rank inequalities occur but vary by
culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
and power
dynamics.
Human hierarchies have unique aspects:
- Membership in multiple hierarchies - which can overlap and
conflict.
- The specialization of some ranking systems - while high
ranking chimps generally excel at related areas, humans
specialize deeply and build hierarchies around these
subcultures. It is not obvious these skills
generalize.
- Internal standards that don't depend on the real world
The view from the top, the view from the bottom
Rank is so important to humans that we dedicate brain activity
to judging it:
- Detecting rank - takes only 40 milliseconds from facial signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy.
and is also
detected rapidly from our body position. The vlPFC is ventrolateral prefrontal cortex & dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
activate and couple
together when a dominant face is detected probably
indicating mating goals are being evaluated. And we
are interested in what dominant individuals are thinking -
the superior
temporal gyrus is involved in: - Auditory processing including the primary auditory cortex that maps sound frequencies, and Wernicke's area
- Social cognition including: theory of mind.
increases its coupling to the PFC is prefrontal cortex which is:
- The front part of the frontal
lobe of the cerebral
cortex. It evolved
most recently. During adolescence
when the PFC is still deploying, older brain agents provide equivalent
strategies: ventral
striatum. The PFC has been implicated in
planning, working memory:
dorsolateral;
decision making: Orbitofrontal
cortex; and social behavior. Different PFC
circuits track internal reward
driven strategies and externally signalled advice. The
PFC chooses between conflicting options, letting go or
restraint, especially between cognition
and emotions. It imposes
an overarching strategy for managing working memory.
It is essential for thinking about multiple items with
different labels. It includes neurons that are
interested in particular sub-categories: Dog, Cat.
Once it has made a decision it signals
the rest of the frontal lobe just behind it. Glucocorticoids decrease
excitability of the PFC.
. If the hierarchy is unstable the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
activates as
well. And infants can detect rank too. Gossip is an evolved mechanism to enforce: fairness, indirect reciprocity, and avoidance of despotism. It allows: reality testing, transfer of news, and consensus building; to maintain norms. is mostly about
the status of our hierarchy.
- Your brain and your own status - recursively interact,
with dlPFC excitability supporting and being supported by
high rank.
- Your body and your own status - Sapolsky notes testosterone is a hormone secreted by the testes in response to stimulation from the hypothalamic/pituitary/testicular cascade, that makes humans more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status, according to Sapolsky. That means players of the Ultimatum Game, if previously given testosterone can become more generous. Testosterones effect is highly socially contextual so it may encourage acts of kindness or aggression (when challenged). The level of testosterone does not predict which individuals will be aggressive in: Birds, Fish, Mammals including primates. Genes impact the potency of testosterone by altering the enzymes that: Construct it, Convert it to estrogen, code the androgen receptor. This androgen receptor includes a variable polyglutamine repeat which alters the sensitivity to the testosterone signal. The more potent form is associated with boys showing more dramatic 'masculinization' of the cortex. But the detected genetic influences are small. Testosterone decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex and its functional coupling to the amygdala while increasing the coupling between the amygdala & the thalamus. Testosterone shortens the refactory period of amygdaloid & amygdaloid target neurons. This results in impulsive risk taking and more focus on unfamiliar faces and distrust of them. Testosterone increases activity in the ventral tegmentum projecting dopamine to enhance place preference. Winners of fights become more willing to fight in part due to testosterone increasing confidence and optimism and reducing fear and anxiety. And winning at: Chess, Athletics, Stock trades; induces the BNST to add testosterone receptors increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. People become overconfident and overly optimistic.
level
and high-rank don't
correlate in stable hierarchies. Challenge
raises the testosterone level during unstable times.
Alpha baboons are also stressed is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
due to having to defend their rank and their access to
females. Low-ranking in baboons leads
to elevated long-term stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
levels when the
alphas displace aggression and there are no displacement or
grooming activities for the subordinates, which Sapolsky
sees as resembling the learned
helplessness of human depression is a debilitating state which is facilitated by genetic predisposition - for example genes coding for relatively low serotonin levels; and an accumulation of traumatic events. There is evidence of shifts in the sleep/wake cycle in affected individuals (Dec 2015). The affected person will experience a pathological sense of loss of control, prolonged sadness, irritability, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and inability to experience pleasure. It affects 12% of men and 20% of women. It appears to be associated with androgen deprivation therapy treatment for prostate cancer (Apr 2016). Chronic stress depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine, biasing humans towards depression. Depression easily leads to following unhealthy pathways: drinking, overeating; which increase the risk of heart disease. It has been associated with an aging related B12 deficiency (Sep 2016). During depression, stress mediates inhibition of dopamine signalling. There is an association between depression and particular brain regions: Hippocampal dendrite and spine number reductions, Dorsal raphe nucleus linked to loneliness, Abnormalities of the ACC. Childhood adversity can increase depression risk by linking recollections of uncontrollable situations to overgeneralizations that life will always be terrible and uncontrollable. Treatments include: CBT, UMHS depression management. As of 2010 drug treatments take weeks to facilitate a response & many patients do not respond to the first drug applied, often prolonging the agony. Genomic predictions of which treatment will be effective have not been possible because: Not all clinical depressions are the same, a standard definition of drug response is difficult;.
But he notes that these stress effects are filtered by personality differs in at least five key ways: - Extroversion-introversion - whether the person gains energy from socializing or retiring
- Neuroticism-stability - does a person worry or are they calm and self-satisfied
- Agreeableness-antagonism - is a person courteous & trusting or rude and suspicious
- Conscientiousness-un-directedness - is a person careful or careless
- Openness-non-openness - are they daring or conforming
and
social effectiveness.
Sapolsky reviews neurobiological research on hierarchy:
- When subjects viewed people in emotional pain the level
of empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. and disgust is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala.
at the
circumstance varied inversely with the subject's SDO is social-dominance orientation which is:
- How much someone values: Status
and dominance.
.
- High status is a publically accepted, signal that one possesses assets: wealth, beauty, talent, expertise, access & trust of powerful people; to be able to help others.
reduced
anxiety is manifested in the amygdala mediating inhibition of dopamine rewards. Major anxiety results in elevated glucocorticoids and reduces hippocampal dendrite & spine density. Some estrogen receptor variants are associated with anxiety in women. & glucocorticoids are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017).
as long as the lower ranks did not directly report to the
subject.
An SES (socioeconomic status) is:
- The most permeating form of status
among primates. It is reflected in the SES health
gradient where
- Lower life expectancy
and higher incidence and morbidity of numerous diseases
for poor people. Stress
related diseases are most significant: cardiovascular,
gastrointestinal, psychiatric;
- Health gets worse for each point down the SES health
gradient scale and is mostly associated with psychological
impacts of poverty: feeling poor, obvious income
inequality.
- Poverty instigates poor health with low-SES wombs
associated with poorer health as the fetus becomes
adult.
- The SES health gradient is seen in countries with
socialized medicine and universal health care and
expresses in diseases that don't require health care
access.
- Environmental
risk factors associated with being poor explain less
than a third of the SES health gradient effect.
health gradient is
cross-culturally ubiquitous. Material inequality
powerfully subjugates the low ranking.
A really
odd thing that we do now and then
We have and choose leaders aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. .
Sapolsky notes that is different to a primate power hierarchy.
Sapolsky suggests that in choosing leaders we:
- Consciously identify as broadly experienced &
competent.
- Automatically & unconsciously
- The orbitofrontal
PFC is a rich club hub region of the prefrontal cortex, involved in representing emotion & reward in decision-making. It is positioned immediately above the orbits where the eyes sit. The medial part judges the beauty of faces, minds and acts and will conflate them in social emotion evaluations. The orbitofrontal cortex receives projections from the: hippocampus & associated areas of the cingulate, retrosplenial & entorhinal cortices, anterior thalamus, amygdala, midline thalamus, non-isocortical insula, mediodorsal thalamus. selects the better-looking
candidate.
- Bias towards candidates who speak on everyone's
behalf.
- During war time we prefer older, more masculine faces,
but in peace time more feminine faces.
- During times of building cooperation more intelligent
faces are preferred, but not at other times.
- From early in life, indicating these are generalized
deeply entrenched biases.
Oh, Why
not take this one on? Politics and political orientations
- The internal consistency of political orientation -
social, economic is the study of trade between humans. Traditional Economics is based on an equilibrium model of the economic system. Traditional Economics includes: microeconomics, and macroeconomics. Marx developed an alternative static approach. Limitations of the equilibrium model have resulted in the development of: Keynes's dynamic General Theory of Employment Interest & Money, and Complexity Economics. Since trading depends on human behavior, economics has developed behavioral models including: behavioral economics. ,
environmental, international; suggesting an underlying
stable ideology that is a manifestation of intellectual and
emotional style.
- Implicit factors underlying political orientation -
- Intelligence - low IQ has been correlated with RWA (right-wing authoritarianism) is:
- An assessment of how much a person values centralized
authority, the rule of law, and convention.
- Has been experimentally correlated with low IQ. Sapolsky
explains
simple answers are ideal for people with poor abstract
reasoning skills.
.
- Intellectual style - Research concludes: Conservatives
don't like ambiguity, Liberals have greater capacity for
integrative complexity - shifting from fast
to slow thinking given time; Sapolsky concludes
liberals are more motivated to spend the time working
towards situational explanations. And adding cognitive load or
distractions includes the impact of hard thinking by the frontal cortex. As the frontal lobe works to enforce its willpower it becomes difficult for the body to deliver on its metabolic demands. As the frontal lobe weakens the overall effect is for an individual to become more aggressive, less charitable, less honest. The lack of metabolic resources acts as an interoceptive signal to the frontal cortex.
makes us all more conservative.
Sapolsky notes parole judges grant at 60% after eating but
0% just before!
- Moral cognition -
Sapolsky notes that liberals differ from conservatives on
their position on Kohlberg's staged
model of moral development defines a three stage moral process:
- Preconventional reasoning (until age 8 - 10) initially allows aggression. But around two to four years old adult and peer punishment inhibits the use of aggression. And subsequently rewards become significant in the decision process. When these judgements about aggression don't change at age 8 - 10 it predicts increasing risk of adult sociopathy. For the others post conflict reconciliation decreases glucocorticoid levels and anxiety.
- Conventional reasoning (adolescents and adults) reviews the consequences to others and if they are friends, as well as what others would likely do. Being well regarded is also significant. The law becomes significant in the later stage of this phase.
- Post conventional reasoning (Inspiring heroes & insufferable pedants) first increases the value of self-judgement when judging rules. And beyond this are moral acts valued because they represent a position more important than a law.
. Liberals
acceptance of civil disobedience motivates them to work to
move up the stages. Similarly how they value
Haidt's six
foundations of morality of morality are: (1) Care versus harm, (2) Fairness versus cheating, (3) Liberty versus oppression, (4) Loyalty versus betrayal, (5) Authority versus subversion, (6) Sanctity versus degradation; with liberals valuing the first three while conservatives strongly value 4 to 6. separates liberals from
conservatives.
- Affective psychological differences - Ambiguity &
novelty make conservatives anxious is manifested in the amygdala mediating inhibition of dopamine rewards. Major anxiety results in elevated glucocorticoids and reduces hippocampal dendrite & spine density. Some estrogen receptor variants are associated with anxiety in women.
. So
conservatives want to return to former glories unlike
liberals. And this supports an emphasis on loyalty,
obedience and law. Sapolsky suggests impoverished
whites vote Republican to maintain stability, limit change
and threatening uncertainty, driven by fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amydala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. , anxiety and
worries about mortality.
- And of course, some underlying biology
- Political orientation about social issues reflects the insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions:
- Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
driven
sensitivity to visceral disgust is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala.
and strategies for coping with such disgust.
Conservatives feel disgust is a good metric for judging morality provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning. . But
Sapolsky notes what is disgusting shifts over time.
- Conservatism is associated with an enlarged amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala:
- Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
.
- Liberalism is associated with larger amounts of the gray
matter in the 'empathetic is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. '
cingulate is the cingulate gyrus, a rich club hub. Contains many sub-parts:
- The anterior cingulate cortex ACC:
- Is a central focus of empathy supporting people relating to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals. The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.' Pain catches the ACC's attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay silent about actual pain that is signalled from interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain, metaphorical pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment, social exclusion especially in adolescence; as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by observation alone through an intermediate step of shared representation of self. He concludes "At its core the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the other person in pain as an add-on."
- The midcingulate cortex was formerly judged part of the 'emotional' limbic system in MacLean's discredited triune brain model.
.
- No demonstrable genetic influence tied to political
orientation yet.
Obedience and conformity, disobedience and nonconformity
Sapolsky notes that obedience and conformity
are closely linked. Both reflect value-free
terms. Agreement supports the wisdom of crowds.
- Roots - Sapolsky notes both conformity and obedience have
deep roots being present in other species. Chimps are
impressed and learn actions when three of the group each
performs the actions. And they will use the leader aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model.
's strategy in
preference to some other actions. Humans register the
rest of the group has chosen a different strategy to
themselves within 200 milliseconds and within less than 380
milliseconds an activation profile indicates change of
opinion.
- Neural bases - conforming and obedience match the
benefits of fitting in: mesolimbic
dopamine includes projections between the tegmentum and the accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus;
activation. Being out of step
activates: amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
,
insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
; and
hearing of the disagreement with others activates the: vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
, ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
, nucleus accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression. ;
warning that your wrong.
- Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo - Three experiments that show
situation matters & that some normal people can be
coerced into doing terrible things. Asch's famous line
length matching study showed how groups could influence the
subject to conform to a wrong selection 30% of the
time. Milgram showed subjects would inflict pain on
another human when told to do so by an authority figure in a
uniform. Zimbardo got Stanford college students to
dress & behave as guards and prisoners with resulting
brutality to and degradation of the prisoners.
- Situational forces and what lurks in all of us - Zimbardo
concluded that a bad barrel can turn all the apples
bad. He argued for a public health approach to
blocking such environments.
- Some different takes - Psychologists became outraged at
what the subjects had been manipulated to do. And Zimbardo's
role as superintendent, where he set the rules, raises
concerns. Without him the prison experiment has not
replicated accurately. Sapolsky stresses that some
apples don't go bad.
- Modulators of the pressures to conform and obey include:
Morality
and Doing the Right Thing, Once You've Figured Out What That
Is
Sapolsky reviews whether morality provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning.
is based on emotions are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. or
cognition is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. according to
scientific investigation:
- The primacy of reasoning in moral decision making -
Sapolsky notes all societies introduce rules about moral and
ethical behavior. Applying the rules leverages trained
lawyers and requires building scenarios, identifying
proximate and distant causes of events and estimating magnitudes
& probabilities
of consequences of
Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
actions.
Perspectives must be developed using theory of mind of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony. .
But he asserts child
development anchors our assumptions prioritizing the
primacy of reason. Logic
and Moral reasoning both activate the dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
.
- Yeah, sure it is: social intuitionism - Assertions of
morality being founded on reason suffer because from
experiments people are found to use rapid implicit
assessments anchored in emotion: amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala:
- Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
, vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
, orbitofrontal
cortex is a rich club hub region of the prefrontal cortex, involved in representing emotion & reward in decision-making. It is positioned immediately above the orbits where the eyes sit. The medial part judges the beauty of faces, minds and acts and will conflate them in social emotion evaluations. The orbitofrontal cortex receives projections from the: hippocampus & associated areas of the cingulate, retrosplenial & entorhinal cortices, anterior thalamus, amygdala, midline thalamus, non-isocortical insula, mediodorsal thalamus. , insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
,
ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
; and post-hoc
rationalizations. Otherwise environment: Hunger,
dirty desk or bad odor would not alter judgements.
- Again with babies and animals - there is additional
support for implicit assessments indicating human morality
transcends our species boundaries.
- Mr. Spock and Joseph Stalin - Sapolsky notes that while
philosophers and Star Trek's Mr. Spock want morality to be
logical Joseph Stalin
understood that relatives are special. That
holds true except for people with vmPFC damage who are then
happy to harm kin.
Context
Sapolsky argues that both reasoning and intuition contribute to
moral decisions. He reviews what situations increase one
aspect or the other with the help of Josh
Greene's neuroscience experiments uses fMRI to follow brain activity of subjects during Josh Greene's experiments with the trolley problem. He used two scenarios, (1) The five people are doomed, would you pull the lever so the trolley will hit and kill someone: (2) Would you push someone onto the tracks to stop the trolley? Consistently 60-70% of people say yes to scenario (1) but only 30% say yes to scenario (2). The fMRI showed the more the vmPFC and/or amygdala activate the more likely the person is to refuse to act in either case. Greene concludes that intuitions about intentionality are what is changing. Pushing that kills someone feels morally wrong. Greene developed a third scenario where the subject throws the switch to save the five but in doing so pushes a person out of the way and in falling to the ground they die. This seems more acceptable. Then Greene adjusts scenario (1) making the side loop switch back to the main track so that if the trolley is not stopped by the body of a person the five will still die - the same result as scenario (2). Described this way 60-70% find pulling the lever acceptable. Greene concludes our intuitions are very local and the additional indirection in this last scenario stops us feeling disturbed. with the trolley problem is British philosopher Philippa Foot's thought experiment in ethics, which asks if you have the opportunity to switch the tracks ahead of a runaway trolley car so that it kills one person instead of the five on the main track should you: Do nothing or Pull the lever and kill the one. Foot asks what would be the most ethical choice. .
Sapolsky concludes moral decision making is highly context
dependent, shifting the locality/language impact on intuitionist
morals. Sapolsky
highlights Alain
Cohn's report on banking's impact on morals was studied by University of Zurich's Alain Cohn. He used a coin-toss game with financial rewards for guessing outcomes correctly and possibilities to cheat, and for the researchers to detect the cheating. Cohn then primed the test subjects to implicitly think about their profession. For bankers ONLY, thinking about their profession, or the word banking, increased rates of cheating by 20%. The bankers carried two sets of ethical rules concerning cheating in their heads. Context is important in making moral decisions. - bank
employees cheating increased 20% when they thought about
banking, other industries employees did not show the effect!
- But this circumstance is different - Sapolsky sees context
dependency enabling most of us to use special circumstances
to justify our own bad behavior. The vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
is activated in
reviewing our own moral failings inducing shame is an emotional reaction to being discovered cheating on a friend. & guilt is an emotion which alerts us to the risk of cheating on a friend. To be culturally effective the individuals must have respect for the law. while for others
the insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
& dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
activate -
feeling anger is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. and
indignation. For personal moral issues only,
additional stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
results in emotional egoistic rationalizing
judgements. Sapolsky stresses the analogy to us versus them and sees this
ability to forgive our bad actions as very significant and
hard to deter.
- Cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
Context - also
has a huge influence on moral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning.
context. Sapolsky notes it is a complex and large
subject so he focuses on to three subjects:
- Cooperation and competition - Herrmann's
studies of public good is an economic experiment, run by Herrmann et al., where players, from around the world, have tokens which they can share or keep to themselves over a series of rounds. Shared tokens are multiplied and shared evenly among all players. And players could 'pay' to punish others for the size of their contribution. So players can do best if they alone keep their tokens and everyone else share. They will perform worst if they share but no one else does. Herrmann found:
- Across all cultures, people were more prosocial than it was rational to be.
- Some cultures used antisocial punishment because they force everyone to contribute more.
- There was a correlation between antisocial punishment and low social capital in the culture.
found all cultures to be more
prosocial is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act. than was
rational. But different cultures used antisocial
punishment is where someone is punished for being overly generous. People from Greece and Oman, where there is low social capital, were particularly likely to do this. to differing extents. People in
cultures with low social capital is the collective quantity of resources such as trust, reciprocity & cooperation according to Sapolsky.
used antisocial punishment most often feeling they don't
trust one another and feel they have no efficacy.
- Honor is a doomsday machine emotional signal, which Pinker explains as an advertisement of the desire to publically avenge even minor trespasses and insults. and revenge -
monotheistic warrior
pastoralist cultures differ on moral response to
personal affronts.
- Shamed
collectivists and guilty individualists - contrast
by different approaches to the morality of ends &
means:
Fools rush in: applying the findings of the science of
morality
Sapolsky wonders how these insights can help us be at our
best.
- Which dead white male was right? He looks for the optimal
moral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning.
philosophy
reviewing the three schools: Virtue ethics identifies culture relative habitually enabled character traits such as Aristotle's list: Moral: Courage, Temperance, Liberality, Magnificence, Magnanimity, Proper ambition, Truthfulness, Wittiness, Friendliness, Modesty, Righteous indignation; Intellectual: Intelligence, Science, Theory; Good sense, Understanding, Practical wisdom, Craftsmanship; that a person can practice to achieve a state of living a proper life. It emphasizes the agent and assumes guilt will help. -
you the Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agent are a better
person and will respond to guilt is an emotion which alerts us to the risk of cheating on a friend. To be culturally effective the individuals must have respect for the law. ,
Deontology judges the morality of an action by rules. Bentham coined the term to mean the knowledge of what is right and proper. The rules can be universal, religious or cultural and there is an obligation to obey them. Its moral intuitions about trolley problems focus on the vmPFC, amygdala and insula. -
emphasizes the act and leverages the This page discusses the physical foundations of complex adaptive
systems (CAS). A small set of
rules is obeyed. New [epi]phenomena then emerge. Examples are
discussed.
rule
, Consequentialism argues that the consequences (outcome) of ones actions are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the morality of the conduct. Mohist consequentialism argues outcomes that are good for the community outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain in contrast to Bentham's utilitarian aggregate happiness. There are other forms. Consequentialism's moral intuitions about trolley problems focus on the dlPFC and moral reasoning.
- focuses on the implications of the outcome; with our
automatic, intuitive moral judgements shaped by evolution to
help spread our genes. Consistently 30% of trolley problem is British philosopher Philippa Foot's thought experiment in ethics, which asks if you have the opportunity to switch the tracks ahead of a runaway trolley car so that it kills one person instead of the five on the main track should you: Do nothing or Pull the lever and kill the one. Foot asks what would be the most ethical choice.
subjects are deontologists refusing to save the five lives,
30% were utilitarian (consequentialists) pulling the lever
and pushing the person, for the rest moral philosophy was
context dependent. Sapolsky notes that the mind's
architecture demonstrates this balancing act between the vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
& the dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
that allow us
to consider difficult short and long term trade-offs is Antonio Damasio's proposal that the limbic system can help guide the vmPFC's choice of options by running internal simulations of what the alternative outcomes will feel like.
and unintended consequences. And he asserts that moral
intuitions reflect habitual learning of important cognitive
conclusions based on cultural beliefs.
- Slow
and fast: The separate problems of "Me Versus Us" and "Us
Versus Them" - Josh Greene used the tragedies of the commons reflects the lack of incentive for individuals to cooperate to sustain a common good when there is no immediate disincentive, even when over time the result will be collapse of the resource base sustaining the group. Josh Greene notes the issue is how to jump-start and maintain cooperation. Sapolsky notes evolution has solved this problem by leveraging bootstrapping processes and helping groups to discourage individuals being selfish. Institutions: religion, nationalism, ethnic pride, team spirit; provide green-beard markers to support this process.
and commonsense
morality is Josh Greene's label for how cultural disagreements about who is righter, result in most intergroup conflict. Each group has loaded moral significance on their strategies and priorities, which conflict with the out-group. Greene concludes 'right' is a post-hoc rationalization defending a self-serving, parochial moral intuition. to explore these. Sapolsky notes that
the tragedy of commonsense morality is so terrible because
everyone can feel that 'They'
are deeply wrong because our cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation.
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
institutions:
religion, nationalism,
ethnic pride, team spirit; that help green-beards genes code for expressing an evolved signal, such as a green-beard, and cooperating with other "green-beard displaying" people. Humans can adjust how we view these signals and so how we define us and them. make
the commons work, drive our worst behaviors in confronting
'Thems' and their different morals provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning. . Sapolsky
concludes that to find the best in 'Us Versus Them' it is
important to think, reason, and question, making the
thinking slow and iterative.
- Veracity and
Mendacity - Sapolsky argues the context dependent good or
bad impacts of telling lies and the truth make the biology
of honesty and duplicity very muddy. The nature of investigates the optimal strategies for cooperating. The iterative Prisoner's Dilemma scenario was shown by Axelrod & Hamilton to reward a Tit for Tat strategy with perfect signals. An effective way to limit the risks of initiating Tit for Tat in a potential sea of Always Defectors is a genetically encoded signal of cooperation such as the green-beard gene. Other evolved strategies include genetic algorithms. competitive
evolutionary games selects for deception and watching
for it. Nonhuman primates have developed sophisticated
tactics to game other group members. The larger the neocortex is the main part of the cerebral cortex in mammals. It was originally thought to exist only in mammals but is also present in reptiles and birds buried behind other areas of the for-brain. The for-brain develops based on a genetic plan consistent across all vertebrates. The neocortex processes vision in the visual hierarchy V1, V2, V3 .. V5 ... V20; and language with areas including Wernicke's and Broca's with sensors in the inner ear. Primate species with bigger social groups have larger cortices. Human cortex size suggests traditional human cultures had an average size of 150 people.
, the higher
the rates of deception, independent of group size! But
Sapolsky asserts only humans consciously strategize and feel
morally troubled when they act on the strategies: Our facial
muscles have the most complex innervation and use massive
amounts of motor neurons to control them, We have language
allowing us to build
distance between the signal and its meaning, We can cognitively is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. finesse
the truth as long as we can rationalize to make doing so
feel less dishonest; using the dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
and regions
involved in theory
of mind of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony. . Compulsive liers have increased white
matter and less grey matter. The ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
is involved in these
conflicting emotional choices - monitoring the conflict
between reality and the lie and slowing down the thought
process slightly. Sapolsky notes that transcranial
direct-current stimulation shows the dlPFC drives the
lie. And it is involved in pushing to be honest.
People who were capable of cheating used the dlPFC, vmPFC is ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is:
- Focused on the impact of emotion
on decision making
- A participant in limbic
system operations
- Many human behaviors involve interactions between the
vmPFC, the limbic system & the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Part of decision making is
for the limbic system to internally simulate (often with
the help of the sympathetic nervous system) what
alternative outcomes of a decision will feel like with the
results of these somatic
marker analyses being reported to the vmPFC.
- Damage to the vmPFC results in bad decision making: Poor
judgement in choosing friends & partners, Failure to
respond to negative feedback; because they can't feel the
issues.
and ACC to evaluate
whether not to lie. But people who never
cheat did not depend on cortical evaluation. They had
practiced and automatized doing the right thing -- virtue ethics identifies culture relative habitually enabled character traits such as Aristotle's list: Moral: Courage, Temperance, Liberality, Magnificence, Magnanimity, Proper ambition, Truthfulness, Wittiness, Friendliness, Modesty, Righteous indignation; Intellectual: Intelligence, Science, Theory; Good sense, Understanding, Practical wisdom, Craftsmanship; that a person can practice to achieve a state of living a proper life. It emphasizes the agent and assumes guilt will help. .
Feeling
Someone's Pain, Understanding Someone's Pain, Alleviating
Someone's Pain
Sapolsky notes that empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. 's
underlying biology includes sensorimotor, emotional are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. and cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. building blocks
that ensure varied forms which can be sharpened or dulled by
quite logical influences. He investigates when does
empathy encourage us to do something helpful? When we do act,
whose benefit is it for? He concludes our This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution made us focus on local acts
and bound together altruism, is the property that since kin share genes natural selection will improve the replicator's selfish goals by supporting the survival of such relatives. Improving the chances of survival of non-kin is hard to explain with a gene preservation theory. Why help a competitive gene? Trivers explanation of reciprocal altruism shows the special conditions under which it can occur.
and reciprocity benefits another organism at a cost to the behaver. It is differentiated from kin altruism, by Williams and Trivers, since it can apply between unrelated individuals. It can be induced by natural selection when there is mutual survival benefit in group activities and cheating can be detected and discouraged. Humans, leveraging the cognitive niche, can particularly easily, build an evolved amplifier, through sharing information at little cost and significant benefit. But African savanna hunters similarly gain from sharing large game meat with other un-related altruistic group members since the meat would otherwise spoil before it could be eaten. .
And that it helps to have generated learned habits for
automatically acting compassionately.
"For" versus "as if" and other distinctions
Sapolsky notes that empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. ,
sympathy is an emotion, the desire to help those in need. Steven Pinker suggests it may develop into a sham emotion to earn gratitide. Sapolsky adds that it can describe someone with the power to help, but who choses not to. Alternately it can indicate feeling sorry for someone elses pain while not understanding it, in contrast with empathy. Or it can mean the emotionally distanced sense of feeling for someone. Or the state of feeling their pain as if it were happening to you where it may cause such distress as to focus you onto alleviating you own distress. , and compassion indicates an emotional state where resonance with someone else's distress leads one to help them. are suitcase words have multiple attached meanings which encourage us to think in different ways about the word. Suitcase words are reviewed by Marvin Minsky. that
are about internally motivated states. And insights about
these states can be found by observing other animals.
Emotionally contagious, compassionate animals
Sapolsky asserts many animals:
- Show mimicry,
- Show emotional contagion where the emotion can transfer to
other actions.
- Have socially learned fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amydala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala.
conditioning.
- Bullying is a complex childhood adversity. Sapolsky explains that targets of bullying aren't selected at random. And bullies often come from families with single mothers or younger parents with low educational and economic prospects. Sapolsky notes that someone who bullies and is also bullied is likely to be a real mess as an adult.
elevates glucocorticoid are corticosteroids which bind the glucocorticoid receptor. They decrease excitability of prefrontal cortical neurons. They have adverse effects in fetal/infant development having organizational effects on fetal brain construction and decreasing levels of: growth factors, neurons, synapses; resulting in an adult brain that is more sensitive to environmental triggers of depression and anxiety. Glucocorticoids affect gene control structures and induce epi-genetic changes. They have been found associated with high sodium chloride consumption (May 2017).
levels and anxiety is manifested in the amygdala mediating inhibition of dopamine rewards. Major anxiety results in elevated glucocorticoids and reduces hippocampal dendrite & spine density. Some estrogen receptor variants are associated with anxiety in women. in
mice for weeks after the event. Even mice who were
just observing the bullying.
- Pain amplifies the aggression response of people by interoceptive signalling of brain regions providing social emotions including the PAG projecting to the amygdala; making aggressive people more so and less aggressive people less so. Pain is the main reason people visit the ED in the US.
sensitivity increased in mice when they observed other mice
that were in pain.
- Console a fight victim that did not start the aggression:
chimps, bonobos, wolves, dogs, elephants, and corvids.
Prairie voles will lick & groom their partner if it has
been stressed is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis.
- The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
.
But Sapolsky admits it is not possible to tell if the animals
are being self-serving or compassionate indicates an emotional state where resonance with someone else's distress leads one to help them. .
Emotionally contagious, compassionate children
Sapolsky reminds us of the prior discussion about children & adolescents:
Again Sapolsky notes it is difficult to tell if children are
hoping to end a sufferer's distress or their own.
Affect and/or
cognition?
The ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
is the center of empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. in humans, but in
other species it processes interoceptive
signals indicate the body's internal state: Pain, Fatigue; seconds to minutes before. The interoceptive 'networks' project to brain regions that implement social emotions. and monitors disconnects from what it
predicted. Sapolsky notes these later two roles intersect
in unexpected pain amplifies the aggression response of people by interoceptive signalling of brain regions providing social emotions including the PAG projecting to the amygdala; making aggressive people more so and less aggressive people less so. Pain is the main reason people visit the ED in the US. and its
meaning, including for social and
emotional pain suggesting the ACC is self-oriented and
worried about ones well-being rather than empathy for
others. So is an empathic state about one's self?
Sapolsky notes the ACC also allows us to 'empathetically feel'
someone's pain, under the influence of oxytocin is a peptide hormone which makes humans more prosocial to and socially competent in their in-group and more antisocial to everyone else. The effects are contingent; changing during stress and in the presence of a threatening outgroup. Oxytocin makes people look at eyes longer, encouraging improved accuracy at perceiving emotions. It enhances activity in the TPJ supporting modeling of other people's thinking. Dogs and their owners secrete oxytocin increasing the amount of eye contact between them. It is associated with pair bonding. It is central to female mammals wanting to nurse, nursing, and remembering their child. Its effects are context dependent and so is the regulation of the genes that control oxytocin. Variants of a gene CD38 which facilitates oxytocin secretion from neurons are associated with differing levels of activation of the fusiform face area when looking at faces. Sapolsky describes an oxytocin receptor gene variant that is associated with children showing: Extreme aggression, A callous unemotional style; foreshadowing adult psychopathy. And another receptor gene variant which is associated with childhood social disconnection and unstable adult relationships. Gene/environment interactions complicate the interpretation of the presence of particular gene variants. Hypothalamic neurons send projections to: ventral tegmentum which also becomes more receptive during child birth, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, amygdala where it inhibits the central amygdala suppressing fear & anxiety consistently in men while still allowing women to respond to threats to their infants, frontal cortex, olfactory network where it helps new rat mums to learn the smell of their offspring; where oxytocin prepares the brain for in-group bonding, out-grouping, birth and maternal behavior. Outside the brain hypothalamic neurons in females send oxytocin to the posterior pituitary where it enters the blood stream stimulating uterine contraction during labor & supporting milk production for weaning. Disorders associated with oxytocin abnormalities include ASD. , which helps us
learn what someone else is going through and bond with them --
an add-on to self-interest.
The insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
and amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust from the insula cortex. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
are also involved
in developing full empathy.
The cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. dlPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision making - highly rational,
unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
and theory of mind of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony. This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
networks: TPJ is the temporoparietal juncture: left, right; where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, an area of the cortex with projections from the thalamus, limbic system, visual, auditory and somatosensory networks. It supports modeling of self and others. & superior central
sulcus; help figure out what's going on. This is
especially true for issues of causation and
intentionality. These take shape when children distinguish between self-
and other-inflicted pain. Sapolsky concludes
cognitive processes act as a gatekeeper, deciding whether a
particular misfortune is worthy of empathy. And cognition
helps when the pain is more abstract or seen indirectly.
Human empathy, like in rodents, is contingent on 'Us' rather than
'Them', unless cognition intervenes.
With 'Us' empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. activates the ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
but with 'Them' the TPJ is the temporoparietal juncture: left, right; where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, an area of the cortex with projections from the thalamus, limbic system, visual, auditory and somatosensory networks. It supports modeling of self and others. .
Across the socioeconomic spectrum, the wealthier is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. people are (or
just feel): The less they empathize with people in distress, The
poorer they are at recognizing other's emotions are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. , The greedier
they are and the more likely they are to cheat or steal; which
is due to seeing these things as beneath
'Us.'
Sapolsky concludes for empathetic states, emotion and cognition
both apply but the balance between them shifts with more
cognitive work needed as the other person becomes more
different.
A mythic leap forward
Sapolsky explains that University of Parma's Rizzolatti and
Gallese identified mirror
neurons are part of the premotor cortex, responding to signals from the PFC and sending on signals to the motor cortex to drive muscles. This subset of Pre-motor cortex neurons, also respond to observation of other animals performing the same act requested by the PFC. The mirroring can be abstract: See and hear activate same mirror neurons, Activate only when the action has the same intentionality; and none has been shown to be causally related yet. . Sapolsky notes that some people, including
UC San Diego's Ramachandran, have suggested they can help
support empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. It is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. .
But there is no evidence of a causal link.
The
core issue: Actually Doing Something
Sapolsky asks what actually predicts that someone will do
something compassionate indicates an emotional state where resonance with someone else's distress leads one to help them.
to lessen another's pain. Sapolsky argues:
- Being in an empathetic state does not guarantee a
compassionate act because it can become an endpoint itself
or is so powerful as to turn the person's focus
inward. The ACC is either the
- Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
and
insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
find this
easy. To catalyze, an infrastructure amplifier.
the compassionate act it is necessary to keep emotional
distance. Buddhists do this by thinking about
compassion which activates the mesolimbic
dopamine pathway includes projections between the tegmentum and the accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus; .
- Codependency can leverage pathological altruism leading to
implicit support for your partner's dysfunction but with a
focus on solutions to your own empathy derived
concerns.
- Doing good can feel good. So compassion may be
self-rewarding. Especially when the act makes things
more equitable and is performed voluntarily. As with morality
the prosocial is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act.
compassionate act tends to come easiest to a person brought
up by parents who were charitable and emphasized charitable
acts as a moral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning.
imperative.
Metaphors We Kill By
Sapolsky argues language separates a signal, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. 's message from
its meaning and this Rather than oppose the direct thrust of some environmental flow agents
can improve their effectiveness with indirect responses.
This page explains how agents are architected to do this and
discusses some examples of how it can be done.
indirection
had significant benefits: Able to represent past and future emotions are low level agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Disgust, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. , Messages
unrelated to emotion, Lying
enabling the prisoner's
dilemma is a game theoretical scenario explored by mathematicians and evolutionary biologists. Two prisoners are to be interrogated separately. They will benefit if they cooperate with one another - serving one year each. But if just one defects they will go free while the other will lose serving three years. If they both defect they will both lose serving two years each. If the game is played once it is best to defect. But if the game is iterative, cooperation can be beneficial using a Tit for Tat strategy. Bootstrapping cooperation can be induced: - When a small founder population first becomes isolated and kin-selection increases and then the group connect to the main population. The group can then use cooperation to out compete the other members.
- Through green-beard signals, driving cooperation and forcing non green-beards to shift to cooperation to compete.
. He suggests metaphor is the height of the
symbolic features of language. Metaphors are deployed
liberally in everyday language. He now explores the
neurobiology of symbolic and metaphorical thinking.
He notes that the very recent evolution of these capabilities is
reflected in our brains improvising to cope with metaphor.
And our brain is struggling to distinguish between the
metaphorical and literal. Sapolsky writes that this has enormous consequences for
our best and worst behaviors.
Feeling someone
else's pain
Sapolsky reviews the ACC is either the - Anterior cingulate cortex which:
- Is a central focus of empathy
supporting people relating
to other's pain. This is dependent on oxytocin.
- In non-human mammals it processes interoceptive signals.
The ACC focuses the internal signals into high level 'gut intuitions.'
Pain catches the ACC's
attention.
- Performs discrepancy detection from the outcome that
was predicted - at a high level. The ACC cares
about the meaning of what is predicted.
- If the ACC has been convinced that a pain killer
placebo has inhibited pain signals, the ACC will stay
silent about actual pain that is signalled from
interoceptive networks.
- The ACC will signal: physical pain, emotional pain,
metaphorical
pain, anxiety, disgust, embarrassment,
social exclusion especially
in adolescence;
as one and the same. The ACC's abnormalities
being associated with major depression.
- Has a bridging role between the empathetic and
self-interested pain monitor. Sapolsky
notes the ACC is essential for learning fear and conditioned avoidance by
observation alone through an intermediate step of shared
representation of self. He concludes "At its core
the ACC is about self-interest, with caring about the
other person in pain as an add-on."
- American College of Cardiology
's
significant role in interpreting the meaning of pain: Physical, Discrepancy identification,
Social anxiety,
Feeling as someone
you love is in pain; with the brain mixing literal and
psychic pain -- elevating Substance
P is deployed by cells under stress. It is a powerful vasodilator and initiates deployment of cytokines. Substance P targets the NK1-receptor. It is associated with inflammatory processes and pain. during clinical depression is a debilitating state which is facilitated by genetic predisposition - for example genes coding for relatively low serotonin levels; and an accumulation of traumatic events. There is evidence of shifts in the sleep/wake cycle in affected individuals (Dec 2015). The affected person will experience a pathological sense of loss of control, prolonged sadness, irritability, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and inability to experience pleasure. It affects 12% of men and 20% of women. It appears to be associated with androgen deprivation therapy treatment for prostate cancer (Apr 2016). Chronic stress depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine, biasing humans towards depression. Depression easily leads to following unhealthy pathways: drinking, overeating; which increase the risk of heart disease. It has been associated with an aging related B12 deficiency (Sep 2016). During depression, stress mediates inhibition of dopamine signalling. There is an association between depression and particular brain regions: Hippocampal dendrite and spine number reductions, Dorsal raphe nucleus linked to loneliness, Abnormalities of the ACC. Childhood adversity can increase depression risk by linking recollections of uncontrollable situations to overgeneralizations that life will always be terrible and uncontrollable. Treatments include: CBT, UMHS depression management. As of 2010 drug treatments take weeks to facilitate a response & many patients do not respond to the first drug applied, often prolonging the agony. Genomic predictions of which treatment will be effective have not been possible because: Not all clinical depressions are the same, a standard definition of drug response is difficult;
and dread activating cortical components of pain networks.
The ACC activates if a hated rival succeeds while if he fails
the dopaminergic
reward pathways activate!
Disgust and Purity
The insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
supports
our various feelings of disgust is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala. :
Protecting us from rancid food, Detecting faces showing disgust,
Detecting unattractive faces, and thinking about details of
appalling events. Sapolsky stresses the bidirectional link
between visceral is our bodily responses to rancid food, evolved to protect against ingesting toxins and infectious organisms. These responses: wrinkling the nose, raising upper lip, narrowing eyes, slowing of heart, gaging or vomiting out food reflexively; are bound by the architecture of the brain: insula; to other interests of the insula such as faces indicating disgust, unattractive faces, norm violations, moral disgust, and risks to purity. There are political effects: - Social conservatives have a lower threshold for visceral disgust than progressives.
- A sense of threat is bound into social situations: Sanctity of marriage, Family values; with disgust serving as an ethnic or out-group marker.
- Being clean is associated with being good & close to god.
& moral
disgust. Both send a signal, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. to our emotional
networks to respond aversively, binding our physical responses
to metaphorical ideas. The body part: mouth, hand; that
communicates a lie becomes associated with it and needs to be
cleaned (Macbeth effect is the need to clean part of the body used to perform an immoral act. University of Toronto's Chen-Bo Zhong & Northwestern University's Katie Liljenquist asked subjects to recount a moral or immoral act in their past. Subsequently the volunteers were offered a gift of a pencil or pack of antiseptic wipes. Those recounting immoral acts selected the wipes more often. Physical and moral purity and actions are bound together by the insula. Another study asked subjects to speak or write a lie. This time the complementary cleaning products in a study using western subjects were associated with the mouth if they spoke the lie or hands if they wrote it. If the subjects were East Asian those that wrote the lie selected face cleansers -- Sapolsky comments "If you are going to save face, it should be a clean one. ).
The feeling of being dirty can induce a balancing prosocial is prioritizing benefiting others through: Help, Charity, Truth; even if many are acts of restitution to balance out antisocial acts. Due to the Insula's binding of physical and metaphorical disgust, physically washing your hands can be enough to reduce the need for a prosocial act. behavior but
studies show washing your hands reduces this drive. And
Sapolsky raises concerns about the political
implications and problems for Commonsense
Morality of the brain's intermixing visceral & moral
disgust.
Real versus
Metaphorical Sensation
Yale's
John Bargh showed experimentally that evaluation of the
seriousness of a person from reading their resume could be
influenced by the weight of the clipboard holding it. Hard
or soft chairs influenced the judgement of if someone was
hard-hearted or a softie. Cups of hot or cold drinks
influenced the evaluation of someone's personality.
Sapolsky notes that our brains also confuse metaphorical and
literal interoceptive
information indicate the body's internal state: Pain, Fatigue; seconds to minutes before. The interoceptive 'networks' project to brain regions that implement social emotions. : judges refused parole far more when they were
hungry. The brain uses circuits that deal with physical
properties of objects to assess metaphorical language.
Duct Tape
Symbols are interpreted as signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy.
by various species. Even in the setting of experiments,
for the subjects: rats; the symbol can become
rewarding. Metaphorical symbols have this power and
we struggle to remember these metaphors aren't literal.
Sapolsky explains that This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution
must tinker
leveraging exaptation, initially termed preadaptation refers to the coopting of some function for a new use.
to build in access to any new This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Key research is
reviewed.
emergent
strategy, such as development of the von Economo neurons are also called spindle neurons and are:
- Found only in: Primates, Whales, Dolphins, Elephants;
- Present in the: Insula,
Anterior cingulate -
focused on empathy; integrating
and repurposing these basic facilities into high level
capabilities such as moral disgust.
- First neurons destroyed by FTD.
to support the insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
's
identification of moral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning.
disgust is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala. .
The Metaphorical
Dark Side
Sapolsky stresses the significance of our confusing
metaphorical and literal:
- Kin selection is a strategy of selfish genes, which aims to maximize gene survival & replication across all the bodies where a copy of the gene probably exists: relatives. Altruism is beneficial to gene replication in this situation. Love supports the agent's prioritization of appropriate altruistic strategies. Sapolsky describes an array of strategies used to identify kin:
- Genetically shaped pheromonal signatures. Rodents leverage the immune systems MHC super variable gene regions to develop unique signals. The more similar the signals are the closer is the relative. Pregnancy triggers adult neurogenesis in the olfactory system of rat mothers to allow them to learn the smell of their newborn.
- Imprinting on the female whose birdsong a chick heard while still in the egg
- Degree of paternalism depending on likelihood of being the father in primates
- Humans use cognition
in humans is mostly cognitive is the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals according to Princeton's Jonathan Cohen. .
Allowing metaphorical signals: cockroach, rodent, cancer is the out-of-control growth of cells, which have stopped obeying their cooperative schematic planning and signalling infrastructure. It results from compounded: oncogene, tumor suppressor, DNA caretaker; mutations in the DNA. In 2010 one third of Americans are likely to die of cancer. Cell division rates did not predict likelihood of cancer. Viral infections are associated. Radiation and carcinogen exposure are associated. Lifestyle impacts the likelihood of cancer occurring: Drinking alcohol to excess, lack of exercise, Obesity, Smoking, More sun than your evolved melanin protection level; all significantly increase the risk of cancer occurring (Jul 2016). , feces; to
convince our insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. It is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system.
that someone is disgusting is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala.
& less than human, enabling genocide: Rwanda, Nazi
Germany.
A glimmer
Sapolsky explains that metaphor can similarly be used to
overcome such hatred. By understanding the emotional
importance of metaphorically derived sacred values and ensuring
that these are resolved helps undermine the disgust and anger
generated by ignoring them: Northern Ireland, Palestine, South
Africa. Leveraging our confusion of literal and
metaphorical can be used to bring about the best of
behaviors.
Biology,
the criminal justice system, and (oh why not?) free will
Sapolsky asserts the Matt Taibbi describes the phenotypic
alignment of the American justice system. The result
he explains relentlessly grinds the poor and undocumented into
resources to be constrained, consumed and ejected. Even as
it supports and aligns the financial infrastructure into a
potent weapon capable of targeting any company or nation to
extract profits and leave the victim deflated.
Taibbi uses five scenarios to provide a broad picture of the:
activities, crimes, policing, prosecutions, court processes,
prisons and deportation network. The scenarios are:
Undocumented people's neighborhoods, Poor neighborhoods, Welfare
recipients, Credit card debtors and Financial institutions.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The alignment of the
justice system reflects a set of long term strategies and
responses to a powerful global arms race that the US leadership intends to
win.
current criminal
justice system needs to be abolished and replaced with
something with similar features but totally different
underpinnings. He wants a radical alteration that better
reflects our known biology. The current legal framework is
based on a very shaky assumption:
- Free will is the subjective assessment of one's ability to make decisions and perform independent actions. Philosophers note that causal chains linking physical phenomena with conscious decisions would undermine the idea of independent free will. RSS views the architecture of CAS agency as requiring indirect associations between phenomena and agent's models. Evolution captures these associations within the genetic structures of the emergent agents, removing any epistemological or complementarity constraints. Sapolsky concludes that this evolved agency severely limits the potential contribution of free will.
in how
we behave. Biological problems: seizures, madness; can
clearly impact the link between our decisions and our
actions. This undermines the idea of complete free
will. So the legal system assumes mitigated free
will judges that people must be held responsible for their actions, assuming free will, but being psychotic can be a mitigating circumstance. which allows sane people to be held responsible
for their actions. Sapolsky rejects mitigated free
will since he concludes it depends on the presence of a homunculus. That
is because ' The complexity of behavior is explored through Sapolsky
developing scenarios of our best and worst behaviors across time
spans, and scientific subjects including: anthropology,
psychology, neuroscience, sociology. The rich network of
adaptive flows he outlines provides insights and highlight
challenges for scientific research on behavior.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory builds on Sapolsky's
details highlighting the strategies that evolution has captured
to successfully enter niches we now occupy.
behave' shows
behaviors to be due to neural circuit, a network of interconnected neurons which perform signalling, modeling and control functions. In Cajal's basic neural circuits the signalling is unidirectional. He identified three classes of neurons in the circuits: - Sensory, Interneurons, Motor; which are biochemically distinct and suffer different disease states.
based Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents, Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
specified, developed is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete. ,
deployed and operated by genes responding to internal and
external signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fund |