Natalie,
I once interviewed a teenager girl who'd been blind from birth. In
the course of it I made a slightly risque joke and (thankfully) she
took it well and laughed. But she also blushed. She, who had never
seen anybody blushing in her life, had responded in an instinctive
way. So not all behaviour is learned via mirror neurons! (You might
ask whether I offered her a job. Well . . . yes. She had laughed so
whole-heartedly and so charmingly that I decided in an instant. But
after receiving a letter from me she turned me down and took up an
offer from a bank!)
In your posting you then you went on to discuss epigenetics -- and
very interestingly, too -- including findings which I hadn't heard of
before. By coincidence this morning, before downloading your posting,
I had been reading of a European Union committee's statement about
mobile phones -- that they are potentially dangerous if used too
much. The EU would like member nations to ban the use of wireless
networks and mobile phones in schools. Fears have already been raised
that electromagnetic radiation emitted by wireless devices,
particularly when held close to the ear, or living too closely to a
base station, can cause cancers and affect the developing brain. This
runs counter to statements by the World Health Organisation and the
UK Department of Health, which say exposure to electromagnetic fields
poses little or no risk to human health.
Until there's hard evidence that mobile phones are harmful I don't
suppose for a minute that this instruction will ever be issued or, if
it's issued, that children will obey it. Sixty-odd years ago,
teachers all over England tried to ban the use of ballpoint pens,
insisting that children use pen and ink or, if they were well-off,
fountain pens. This was not on medical grounds but that ballpoints
led to sloppy writing. In this, teachers were quite right, of course.
But the children still won!
But as to the health risk of mobile phones, the EU committee,
nannie-like though it may be, is much more likely to be right than
the WHO. Those who pooh-pooh the harmful effects say that the
wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the mobile
phone is beyond the radiation reception bands of the atoms that make
up the normal molecules of our bodies, so mutational effects are
unlikely. That's as may be, though it must be pointed out that a
fully stretched-out chromosome (a DNA molecule containing a
super-conductive hydrogen-bond core and which would act as a perfect
aerial) is several centimetres long and would be a natural absorber
of cell phone radiation. It never is stretched-out, of course, and
remains for the most part tightly bundled, but one never knows just
how much our chromosomes -- containing our genes, of course -- are affected.
However, the fact remains that even if our chromosomes are not
perfect absorbers of radiation -- unlike food in our microwave ovens
-- the constant use of the mobile phone does, in fact, heat up body
tissue, including brain cells, within a few centimetres of its use.
This is well-established and not denied by anyone. However, the 'safe
proponents' of mobile phones say that the heat effect is so slight
that the normal blood supply easily takes it away.
This is true enough, but this is only a superficial derivation from
physics. It does not take into account the brand new science of
epigenetics which has only come into its own since the Human Genome
Project of 2003 and since. This says that genes respond to any
changes that might take place in the environment outside the nucleus
of a cell, even those we would consider trivial. For most of the
time, most of our genes are strictly regulated to carry out normal
housekeeping tasks according to a 'standard' (ideal) environment
around them. What regulates them are not in the genes themselves but
outside them. Some of the regulators are produced in the 'junk' or
non-coding region of the DNA, others are in the nuclear fluids
outside the DNA, others are in the fluids outside the nucleus but
within the larger cell, but yet others come into the cell from the
bloodstream and even more broadly from the outside world -- the food
we eat, the quality and the temperature of the air we breathe and so on.
What regulators do is to alter the stops and starts of specific genes
and also to alter the multitude of associations that take place
between genes. All this is for the sake of adjusting the expression
of our genes (which are themselves normally unchangeable) according
to the environment outside. For most of the time, the re-adjustments
are benign attempts to keep the whole body working efficiently. But
sometimes (let us say when we inhale or eat carcinogenic chemicals)
some harmful variants of otherwise healthily-repressed genes are
brought into play. This is what can cause many types of cancers and
other diseases.
No matter how trivially the external environment may change, our gene
regulators -- epigenes -- adapt with the most exquisite sensitivity
to the new circumstances -- healthily for the most part, but very
dangerously sometimes. The real point at issue regarding mobile
phones is not whether their use causes epigenetic changes in our
brain genes -- they certainly will do -- but of what sort and to what
extent and how frequently. This depends on a host of factors -- the
power-wattage of the mobile phone, how often it's used, the
individual genetic (and epigenetic) make-up of the user, the throw of
the dice as to the period of months or years before a particularly
dangerous epigenetic effect occurs.
So far, the frequency of any particular risk when using the mobile
phone is unknown. The evidence about cancer either way is thin on the
ground. It will require a lot more data gathering to be sure. If
definite risks are discovered then will they be acceptable? After
all, we all take a life-threatening risk when we cross the road and
we still cross roads. So far, it's far from being a black and white
issue. At this stage, whatever the EU or the WHO may say, we simply don't know.
As to declaring an interest I like to think that I am objective in
this matter. Due to my particular circumstances I neither need nor
own a mobile phone. As far as I can recall (and I can recall these
occasions very clearly), I have only used a mobile phone three times
in my life. So you can take it from me that those brain cells close
to my ears are supremely unaffected. However, as I prepare scrambled
eggs or kippers in the microwave for my breakfast every day and peer
at them through the oven window I often wonder whether the epigenes
in the whole of my brain are being discombobulated. (A wonderful word
I've never had occasion to use before!)
Keith
At 06:18 15/05/2011, you wrote:
Keith,
Your ideal classroom sounds pretty good. Throw in the out-of-doors,
love and encouragement at home, and the world will be a better
place. I don't see such a classroom as being expensive, since
sharing facilities would be inevitable, but even if that is the
case, an investment in well rounded experiential learning should not
result in a loss.
You are describing something somewhat similar to the public school
system we grew up with, though far more enhanced and comprehensive.
We were offered many more subjects and activities, obviously due to
available funding. Today's kids usually have to get their parents to
finance subjects that made our programs more conducive to learning.
It wasn't great, but it was way better than what's in place today.
Apart from the elimination of many mind-expanding subjects, today's
children are subject to a number of stressors we never had. Double
income parents, bad daycare, bad T.V. and video games, diminishing
natural environments, more toxins, more drugs, legal and illegal for
both parents and themselves. Far fewer jobs, greater competition,
very realistic fears for survival which they cannot control without
a great deal of effort to change global consciousness about a range
of challenges. They need to learn what will not only develop their
minds and individual talents; they need practical solutions taught
for what they are now facing. They aren't being given the tools, nor
the hope that government will exercise the option to employ the
tools. They need hope that their generation will be different, but
they are being programmed to think about money. They know this isn't
right, and their cortisol levels are surely sky-high. Even math and
reading can prove difficult under such conditions. Just as
individual cells in a Petri dish retreat from toxins and are
attracted to nutrients, 50 trillion celled communities which evolved
into something known as children are growing more depressed about
irresponsible controlling elites.
Very interesting, mirror neurons. This is an expansion of research
around learning by example, which took in, amongst other topics,
video influence on neuronal activity. Learning by example is the
greatest early teacher, yet it doesn't explain why it is that some
knowledge will stick, while some will not -- ever. Another memory
comes to me from learning about the post nuclear testing off of
Anatole Island. The Americans wanted to do some research on recovery
of various species, focusing on the chimp. They taught one to wash
its coconuts before eating the irradiated fruit by example. This
spread one by two to one hundred over time, then suddenly,
overnight, all of the population, 1000's, were washing the coconuts
before eating and drinking of the fruit. The affect was not achieved
by mirroring after the first 100. There's more than
visual/iimitational learning to consider.
Your example of the Bach family speaks to clear environmental
influence, which would provide the necessary knowledge and
encouragement for little musicians to thrive. Simply mirroring has
not really encouraged air-guitarists to pick up an actual
instrument. Obviously, mirroring and modeling scales must go hand in
hand, as well as the individual's desire to experience the mastery
process, which involves personal exploration for which mirroring
could only provide some grounding. In my youth, without the benefit
of any model, I began to draw faces quite well. There wasn't even so
much as any great art around to influence me. What would account for
such a gift? As far as I'm aware, it didn't run in the genes either,
though perhaps further back than my parents were aware. Music, yes,
that we could account for, primarily because my mother was always
singing beautifully. My father was tone deaf. One brother played
piano beautifully without the benefit of lessons, while I played
violin in grades 7 & 8 by ear alone. I was taught ballet, but only
enjoyed dance after I explored it on my own. Mirroring takes you so
far, even late in life, I guess.
Epigenetics has been doing some fascinating research. The most
interesting for me, lately, has been focused on the cell membrane's
receptors. Both Candace Pert's Molecules of Emotions and Bruce
Lipton's Biology of Belief, whose ideas most freshly in my mind
follow here, explore cell complexity. IMPs -- Integral membrane
receptor-effector proteins are "perception switches", linking
reception of environmental stimuli to response-generating protein
pathways. Simultaneous interaction of 10's of 1000's of reflexive
perception switches in the membrane collectively create the complex
behaviour of a living cell.
Signal molecules used by individual cells regulate our own
physiologic function, and when released into the environment, also
influence behaviour of other organisms. Early life single cells were
not solitary, as once believed. They lived in communities, sharing
awareness, coordinating behaviours by releasing "signal" molecules.
With flight or fight behaviour happening even for the single cell,
it grew advantageous, 700 million years ago, for singles to
cooperate, avoid long periods of protective system shut down or
death. That way some cells would continue with growth, leaving the
worrying to others, and specialized cells developed for centralized
info processing, Individual cells membranes retained their info processing.
Growth requires open exchange between organism and environment.
Sustained protection response inhibits creation of life-sustaining
energy. Chronically stressed or depressed individuals actually
develop a shrunken hippo campus and prefrontal cortex, and in some
cases even get scared to death. Parents can improve pre-natal
environments, and in so doing, act as genetic engineers for their
kids. The "transgenerational passage of characteristics by non
genetic means" observed by Lamarck conflicts with Darwin's later
"survival of the fittest" assumption. The social world supplies the
most important experiences influencing expression of genes, which
determines how neurons connect to one another in creating neuronal
pathways, which give rise to neural activity.
A developing fetus not only gets nutrients from blood, but excess
cortisol and other flight or fight hormones if the mother is
chronically stressed; these affect the same target tissues and
organs as in the mother, and blood flows to limbs and life-saving
reflex parts of the brain, weakening the immune system, and
generates a susceptibility to high blood pressure and poor kidney
filtration. Arguments between parents are going to affect the
unborn, as shown on sonograms (Associazione Nazionale Educazione
Perenatale). It has been determined that up to 51% of potential
intelligence is controlled by prenatal environmental factors. For
example, alcohol, smoking and exposure to lead, resulting in reduced
blood flow to brain, decreases IQ. Chronic stress will dampen it,
too. Fortunately, new connections can take place.
Humans need nurture in the form of love and the ability to observe
humans going about their everyday lives. Food, smiles, hugs, unlike,
for example, what so many Romanian orphans experienced. A lack of
touching and attention in poor quality daycares stunted growth and
adversely affected behaviour, Mary Carson observed. High levels of
cortisol were measured in both saliva and blood (Holden, 1996) and
(Prescott, 1996 and 1990). Lack of touch can result in Somatosensory
affective disorder, wherein the affected will physiologically be
unable to suppress surging levels of stress hormones, a precursor to
violent episodes. (We once met a very bright orphaned Romanian teen,
adopted by her Canadian mother at about 8 or 9. Quite the handful,
with symptoms described here, which drugs could only sometimes
contain. Influence does not begin at adoption, as many children
adopted and adoptive parents will reveal to you, no matter how young
they arrive.)
Zooming in on the cell again, it was learned that every functional
cell in our body is made as a complimentary "image" of an
environmental signal. Without a complimentary signal, the protein
would not function, i.e. compliment to something in the environment,
the universe, or to many, God. We evolved as compliments to our
surroundings. If we change the environment too much, we won't "fit"
anymore. (Where to? from such a point, I wonder!)
The surface of our cells is a family of identity receptors,
distinguishing us from others. Self-receptors, or human leukocytic
antigens (HLA) are related to functions in the immune system.
Removal of these would remove personal identity. If we call
receptors "antennas" downloading complementary environmental
signals, reading a signal of self which does not exist in the cell,
but comes to it from external environment. Your identity is an
environmental broadcast received via antennae. It is not the protein
receptor, but what activates receptors that gives individuals their
identity. The broadcast remains, though the tube may have blown.
Once the tube is replaced, the broadcast is received again. The
cells protein receptors are not the self.
With such reasoning, someone born in future might have identity
receptors matching our own. Identity is a complex signature
contained within the vast information that collectively comprises
the environment. Transplant patients apparently report new organs
come with behavioural and psychological changes. Cellular
memory/identity receptors are still downloading environmental
information. With the broadcast still on, we can begin to appreciate
the possibility of an immortality or even reincarnation models.
Well, it's all very exciting, this getting small. Not to be taken as
gospel, please, and kindly direct all protests to the P.H. D's who
published these findings in circles of their peers.
Natalia
On 5/13/2011 10:15 PM, Keith Hudson wrote:
Natalia,
I'd best answer your question by describing what appears to be the
key to real learning -- imitation. By coincidence, an essay I wrote
to my own private list only yesterday ("The kindergarten of the
future") applies here, so I'll follow with it below.
Keith
<<<<
Search for "Bach Gigue" on the Internet and you will find a YouTube
video of a 5 year-old Chinese girl playing a Bach gigue on a
Steinway grand -- and very competently, too. I am sure that J. S.
himself would have been impressed. However, he wouldn't have been
as surprised as I was when I discovered her this morning.
Precocious musical talent ran for generations in the Bach family.
Many boy and girl Bachs would have seen and heard the clavier being
played so many times by their parents or their older brothers and
sisters that, as soon as they could hoist themselves onto a chair
at keyboard height, they would soon have taken to playing as a duck to water.
What enables this talent to arise? Is it special genes? Unlikely.
Each of us has exactly the same genes with the same functions. It's
true that all our genes have variations, sometimes many alternative
variations to suit different occasions, and each of us has a unique
permutation of these. But variations which are rare -- as rare as
genius or precocious talents appear to be -- are invariably harmful
variations, not beneficial ones.
The evidence now gathering thick and fast is that the cause of
precocious skills -- or, indeed, skills of any sort -- are due to
'mirror neurons' in the brain. These were known, but not named or
understood, for many years until their unique character was finally
pinned down by Giacomo Rizzolatti and Laila Craighero at the
University of Parma in 2004 (which will undoubtedly win them a
Nobel prize before too long.). Mirror neurons are those brain cells
which rehearse the decisions that are actually made by motor
neurons when instructing our muscles to perform this or that
act. By using MRI techniques (Magnetic Resonance Imaging brain
scanning), what Rizzolatti and Craighero discovered was that if
person A were merely to observe person B carrying out a skillful
act, then person A's mirror neurons would also be carrying out the
same procedures as B's -- even if A didn't follow through with the
same overt actions. Indeed, at that stage, person A may not have
ever tried to carry out the same actions, Or, if he did, then they
would probably be quite clumsy to start with. Nevertheless, from
then on, both his mirror neurons and his motor neurons would become
increasingly well-defined with further observation and further practice.
This doesn't mean that all the Bach children would be gifted
musicians. For all we know, some of the Bach children didn't bother
to spend much time indoors and wanted to play with other children
or to watch (and copy) the gardener, or the blacksmith down the
road or anglers at the local riverside. The chances were pretty
high, however, that in a musically saturated household the Bach
childrens' mirror neurons would have been constantly observing --
and microscopically practising -- a variety of the musical skills
being carried out around him.
The discovery of the nature of mirror neurons has been hailed as
one of the greatest breakthroughs in neuroscience. Nevertheless, as
per usual, new ideas, however great, take at least a generation to
work their way through a culture to reach the policy-makers. So
what might we expect in the ideal kindergarten in the future? It
would be a pleasant and airy building, probably a lot larger than
our present typical primary school. It would be filled, however,
not so much with teachers and classrooms, but demonstrators and
work rooms -- dance room, adventure gym, music room, carpentry and
handicraft workshop, artist's studio, a mini hospital and a real
baby nursery, computer room, garden, pottery, tailoring room, video
workshop, kitchen, shop, law court, engineering bay, etc. In short,
a miniature version of the real environment and the real skills
that the children will be doing when adult.
Vastly expensive? Of course. But such an education could be
afforded when individual skills (and incomes) are taken far beyond
the average that now exists -- even to the point that the present
highly paid jobs that are fiercely protected will have to be
shared. Occupying a large area? Of course. But there'll be plenty
of space. Western populations are already close to the point of
steeply contracting to much smaller sizes. All this can happen when
mirror neurons come into full use again -- as they used to be in
our hunter-gatherer days.
>>>>
At 00:12 14/05/2011, you wrote:
Keith, you had mentioned to me that money recently invested in the
UK educational system had not resulted in better numeracy scores
nor higher literacy rates. I wonder, how restrictive is the
curriculum? Is it the typical corporate agenda stuff, and if so,
would that not account for the poor showings? Without a
well-rounded curriculum, young minds have no motivation, nor,
unfortunately, the accumulated neural connections to absorb
subjects that, although possibly boring to them, would help
further their pursuits in what they do enjoy.
Natalia
MANSFIELD, Pa., May 9 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say a study of 22
U.S. states and a Canadian province shows when funding support for
school libraries rises, reading and testing scores go up.
Researchers at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania say the study
contradicts an article of faith among critics of public schools
that there is no correlation between spending and learning
outcomes, a university release reported last week.
"Quality school library programs impact student achievement," said
Debra E. Kachel, a professor in the School Library and Information
Technologies Department at Mansfield. "The research shows clearly
that schools that support their library programs give their
students a better chance to succeed."
Kachel and a class of graduate students examined school library
impact studies by 22 states and the Canadian province of Ontario,
all of which found positive links between library support and learning.
The study found that increased library hours and group visits by
classes to the library, larger collections with access at school
and from home, up-to-date technology and more student use of
school library services all led to incremental increases in student learning.
"School leaders should to recognize this research and foster
school library programs that can make a difference," Kachel said.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
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