Pranam The Brain: "*The first step to causing a revolution in science is to smell out an anomaly, notes Professor Vilayanur S. Ramachandran*
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist, has made path-breaking advances in the study of the human brain. During the lockdown, this writer got to talk [on Skype] with Prof. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, and Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute, about how he studies and analyses his patients. Here is his analysis of an astonishing case study — of a patient who saw everything upside down. He describes the logic behind the method he adopts in investigating even the oddest symptoms that some patients manifest: “First, is he really experiencing the symptoms or making it up — for insurance claims? Second, if real, what’s causing it in the brain? Third, in addition to explaining his curious symptoms, what can it tell us about normal brain function and what are its broader implications? Fourth, can you cure the patient?” The human brain is normally programmed — either by genes or by feedback — to see things the correct side up. “If I showed you a book with a familiar picture, of, say, Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru, and it was upside down, you would not recognise it. You would only recognise the person if it were the right side up. That is the way your brain is wired,” he explains. *Visual perception* Visual perception is not just making a replica. Prof. Ramachandran explains: “You learn in school that your eye is like a camera lens and that it inverts the image and your brain sets it right by inverting it again. But this is wrong, because there is no picture in the brain. We accepted the explanation in school but it’s wrong, unless the teacher were being metaphorical.” Studying perceptual and cognitive deficits opens the way to understanding consciousness, emotions, seeing, recognising, everything, he adds, warming up to the topic on hand — the patient who was saying that he was seeing things upside down. “We showed him a matrix of faces in a computer screen, most of them were right side up and one was upside down. In normal people the brain is immediately able to discover the upside-down image. But if only one is right side up and all the rest are upside down, the brain is unable to identify which is the right-side up face. We found that unlike normal people, he was better at discriminating inverted faces than upright faces. I suspect that this may be because his face recognition centre buried in the temporal lobes is only partially damaged. When the wave of neural activity first arrives, it cannot avoid triggering the partial activation and partial engagement of the face-recognition module — but given the damage in the module, it fails completely. If an upside down face is viewed, the triggering doesn’t occur so you are ‘allowed’ to switch strategies and try using other tricks — like point-by-point comparison of features to determine the extent of similarity,” he elaborates. He goes on to describe an experimental scheme called Johansson’s point light walker. It is a minimal drawing consisting of bright points, and when the light points move in synchronicity, the brain constructs a human ‘walker’ from it. If we turn the ‘point-light walker’ image upside down, the brain does not complete the image to make out a person from the points. But with this patient who claims to see things upside down, it’s just the other way around. He cannot see the ‘walker’ when they are right side up but sees them when the screen is place upside down. Now why does this happen, and what is wrong with the brain? *Early image* As Prof. Ramachandran says, very early, during image processing, in the retina, the brain maintains some image characteristic. Then the signal branches into many sets. One set goes to the parietal lobes (side areas) of the brain, others to the temporal lobes (slightly below), the occipital lobes, and so on. “The main two branches are the ones that go to the temporal and parietal lobes. I call the top branch the ‘how stream’ or ‘how pathway’ and the bottom one the ‘what pathway’,” he says, proceeding to outline the process of visual perception. If the “how pathway” is damaged, in a bilateral stroke, for instance, then the patient can still recognise objects. But if you ask him to grab it, he reaches out in a different direction, unable to grab the object even though he can recognise it. After extensive treatment he can acquire the ability to do this correctly. On the other hand, if the “what pathway” is damaged, the converse happens. Another possibility is that that both the ventral and dorsal (parietal lobe, “how pathway”) streams were affected equally. But then he started recovering his dorsal stream functions by re-learning it. “Like, he reaches out his hand to pick up something and when it is wrong he re-learns the whole thing. After being crude and slow at first, after the re-learning process, he is able to point and place his hand correctly,” says Prof. Ramachandran. For the ventral stream, however, such a learning process cannot happen because there is no feedback. For instance, when trying to identify different faces, he does not get any immediate internal feedback, so he cannot re-learn them. Now, this gives a good explanation but there is still one problem. Why is he seeing things upside down? If the pathway is damaged, he should see things randomly, so why is he seeing them upside down? *Primitive mechanism* He himself answers the question: “The only thing I can think of is that there is a primitive (evolutionarily ancient mechanism), default mechanism in the brain which allows something like rotation or inversion to occur before further processing, and his brain has partially reverted to that mode.’ He adds, quickly, “But that’s not really an explanation.” As for a cure, that is still some distance away. “We need to do some brain imaging – not a fishing expedition as it often is, but to rule out or confirm our ideas,” he concludes. *Research matters* In an answer to a query on what matters in research, he recalls how Francis Crick would always advise people to look at the big problems. *“When you are doing research, there is also a tendency to get trapped in cul de sacs of knowledge*. You referee each other’s papers and pat each other on the back. It sounds cynical, but a lot of science is done that way. You should not become part of a club, you should do your own thing,” he says. On the other hand he is also a firm believer in the idea that nature is not conspiring to make important problems difficult. “DNA [structure] was a very important problem but it turned out to be quite easy actually to solve, once Jim Watson, Francis. Crick and Rosalind. Franklin put their minds to it.” he declares, smiling. “Crick was a formidable presence here during the two decades when we were colleagues at the UCSD, and an inspiration to all of us, but many others were also informal mentors — my brother, Ravi, whose idealistic and romantic world view rubbed off on me, and O.L. Braddick, Colin Blakemore and, especially, Richard Gregory and John Pettigrew. Prof. Ramachandran’s stance is this: “If you have some new observation that will not fit the current picture of science, which threatens to upset this huge cathedral people have built — Copernican, Newtonian, Einsteinian and Heisenbergian, or even smaller edifices — you must then not hesitate to tear it down and start from the scratch. Young scientists should aim for such a revolution. You don’t want to be a bricklayer but a revolutionary.” *Revolutionary science* How does one cause a revolution in science? The first step is in smelling out an anomaly. “First, if you have an anomaly, you have to see if its genuine or not. An anomaly is like the smell of burning rubber — you get the sense that something is not okay,” he says, giving the example of the discovery of the theory of continental drift. He says, “A child can see that the west coast of Africa fits the east coast of South America like a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. Till mid-twentieth century, people were saying it is a coincidence. Until one person came along and said it was more than that.” Then came finding fossils on the two coastlines, for example, a 250-million-year-old freshwater lizard called the Mesosaurus. He elaborates, “There are also freshwater snail fossils. How did they get there? You find sauropod bones on the west coast of Africa, the same ones you find on the other side also. But still no one can imagine *terra firma* drifting.” Later, this was explained using the theory of continental drift. “The evidence was staring at them in the face, no one disputed the facts but it was all a matter of interpretation,” he says. “Don’t give up a theory, however absurd it may seem, because you can’t think of a mechanism or because it doesn’t fit in with the big picture. The mechanism may not have been found yet. In fact, it may lead you to find a new mechanism which hasn’t been thought of so far,” he advises. *Bacterial transformation experiment* To illustrate this, he describes how a British group had an experiment in which they showed bacterial transformation. In the lab, with two types (A, smooth and virulent, and B, rough and non-virulent strains) of the bacterium *Streptococcus pneumoniae,* they saw Strain B developing a smooth capsule like Strain A and becoming virulent. [Not knowing the mechanism at work, they concluded Strain B was turning into Strain A.] It was published in an important journal, but hardly anyone paid attention to this. “It was a important result, but because it was just bacteria, no one paid attention. Then along comes [Oswald T.] Avery. He showed that you don’t even need to incubate them together. He just took the juice [extract] from one species and incubated the other strain with the same, and he showed that the species would transform, laying the foundation of molecular genetics.” Prof. Ramachandran describes how [Erwin] Schrodinger asks what this chemical is (Schrodinger wrote about this in his influential book *What is life?* ) — it is the DNA. In the book, “He [Schrodinger] asks what is the other evidence that it is indeed the DNA that is the genetic material.” But Avery had stumbled upon this years ago with the experiment on bacteria. “Now why did people ignore Avery? Because they couldn’t think of a mechanism. So my argument is — don’t throw away something just because you cannot think of a mechanism,” he concludes. “The other criterion for carrying out research is that of simplicity and elegance,” he says. “There is an aesthetic dimension to science. It seems not to hold true these days, as we become more part of the corporate world. We are tainted with … utility,” Prof. Ramachandran adds, almost as an afterthought. KR IRS 20722 On Wed, 20 Jul 2022 at 07:38, 'gopala krishnan' via iyer123 < [email protected]> wrote: > *CULTURAL QA 07-2022-20* > > *BEING A COMPILATION THERE MAY BE ERRORS* > > Q1 Why don't ships sink but a pin does? > > A1 Roy Maldonado, Former Construction, plumbing and paint > Specialist 12 yrs at The Home Depot (company)14m > > Ships have chambers of air built into them, that and *the surface tension > of the water hold the ship up. *Get too much waster in the ship and it > sinks. A pin is a solid piece of metal there are no pockets of air to hold > it up. > > *2ND ANSWER -Non Believer, Former engineer (1975–2017) 30m* > > In simple terms, the nail sinks because *the density of the steel pin is > greater than the density of the water.* Whereas, a ship has a lot of > hollow spaces (filled with air) because of which the overall density of the > ship becomes less than water. > > Q2 What are the "must-eats" in Bangalore? > > A2 Vibhakar T S Lives in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India Updated > Sun > > *Vidyarthi Bhavan. It's one if the oldest restaurants in* the city. It's > known for its dosas, and particularly ‘ Masala Dosa'. One shouldn't miss > eating it in Bengaluru. > > *Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (MTR).Much like Vidyarthi* Bhavan, MTR is also one > of the oldest restaurants in the city. It has its restaurants in different > areas of the city. But the main restaurant is in Lalbagh road. There, one > must definitely try ‘Bisibele bath'. > > *SLV Restaurants. It's one of the main restaurants in* the city. It has > its branches in many areas of the city. It's pretty old too. One should > definitely try eating ‘Idly' here. > > *Brahmin's Thatte Idly. As the name suggests, the* restaurant is famous > for its ‘Thatte idly'. It’s also known for its ‘Puliyogare'. It has its > branches in various areas of the city. > > *VV Puram Food Street. An entire street is dedicated* for the sake of > food shops. It has variety of food items. It's a very famous area in the > city. Here, ‘ Masala Dosa', ‘Akki Roti' and some ‘Ice creams' are must > eats. One should definitely try ‘Nitrogen wafers' here. > > *Malleshwaram Chats Centre.In Malleshwaram* area, there are many shops > known for their ‘Chats'. ‘Pani puri', ‘Masala Puri', ‘Bhel Puri', ‘Sev > Puri', and ‘Dahi Puri' are must eats there. > > Q3 What are the strangest facts about the human brain? > > A3 Info Search Answered by Lois L. Kersey Updated Jul 14 > > *When you sleep in a new place for the first time,* your brain processes > danger and stays half-awake to be more aware. > > *The world's fastest supercomputer needs 24 million* watts of power to > operate, while our brains only require 20 watts and operate about 100,000 > times faster. > > *The human brain is divided into two sides , each* interacting with the > opposite side of the body. *Although this interaction is known, the > reason for it is not yet understood.* > > *The human brain has the capacity to generate* approximately 23 watts of > energy when awake. > > *Of the total blood and oxygen produced in our* body, the brain receives > 20% of it. > > *The blood vessels that are present in the brain are* nearly 100,000 > miles long. > > *In early pregnancy, neurons develop at an* alarming rate of 250,000 per > minute. > > *Almost all colors have a physical wavelength* associated with them, but > *Magenta > does not. Instead, your brain is simply processing the color as " not green > ".* > > *We cry when we are very happy because our* hypothalamus in our brain > can't tell the difference between strong happiness and strong sadness. > > *3% of your brain is just water , which means that *if *you become > dehydrated by more than 2%, you could experience a loss of attention, > cognitive skills, and memory.* > > *In fact, you can improve your memory if you* choose to eat seafood > regularly. The fatty acids in these foods improve the part of the brain > that takes care of memory. > > *The brain cannot feel pain. This allows* neurosurgeons to investigate > areas within the brain while patients are awake. They can receive real-time > feedback from each patient, allowing them to identify specific regions such > as speech or movement. > > *During sleep , your body produces a hormone *****that* prevents you from > getting up and acting out your dreams. Five minutes after a dream, your > body has already forgotten half of it and ten minutes later, 90% of your > memory is gone. > > *Our brain can calculate 10¹³ and 10^16 operations* per second. That's > equivalent to 1 million times the people on earth. In theory, brains are > capable of solving problems faster than any computer in the world, perhaps > better than any computer that will ever exist. > > *Déjà vu has not been fully explained. Scientists* think it's actually a > neurological glitch caused by something being registered in memory before > conscious thought. > > *Ninety minutes of sweating can temporarily shrink* the brain as much as > a year of aging. > > *Stress can change your brain size (and make it* smaller). > > *It is literally impossible for our brain to multitask.* > > Your vision surpasses all other senses. > > My note-*** In that cause why many produce sounds fear of something, cry, > or laugh? > > Q4 Does leaving lamps plugged in use electricity? > > A4 Graham Rolfe, Former Retired Engineer, atheist, vehement > anti-theistJul 13 > > *It depends. If it's just a straight on/off switch, it* shouldn't do. If > it is something like a touch control, then yes it will. > > Q5 What are some facts about India that Indians are generally > unaware of? > > A5 Reena Meena, Former Reader , Thinker , Political Science > Student at Daulat Ram College, Delhi University Updated 2y > > Many of us don’t not know the full form of JCB though we used this term > and see JCB frequently. *JCB stands for Joseph Cyril Bamsford* . It is > the name of person who invented the Vehicle. He was a British businessman > and founder of JCB company . > > Many of us think that Hockey is our National sport but let me tell u guys > that this is not our national sport . *India has no particular national > sport.* And it was confirmed by the Sports ministry in response to an RTI > filed by a 10 year old girl Aishwarya Parashar. > > *Many of us aren’t familiar with, when we recite our national anthem; It’s > Sindhu not Sindh . Sindh is the* part of Pakistan and this change was > done in 1947–48, but still many of us recite it as Sindh not Sindhu. > > *Many of us think that the Great wall of China is* visible from space but > it has been proved that this isn’t possible hence not visible from there. > *It's > completely a myth.* > > Q6 Are Africans the only pure humans in the world? > > A6 Claire Jordan, Degree in biology and folklore; programmer, > shop owner, secretary on newspaper Jul 11 > > *We are all pure human. If you mean, pure Homo sapiens, there are some > people in central Africa who seem to be pure H*. sapiens, yes. *The rest > of us have some genes from Neanderthals and/or Denisovans and/or a couple > of other groups* we haven’t named yet, but they were also humans, just > with some slightly different adaptations. > > Q7 Is it okay to pour a concrete slab on top of an existing > one? > > A7 Gopalkrishna Vishwanath, Graduated in 1972, Hold a master's > degree. Experience 37 years. Jun 28 > > *No. It’s not done. The new slab will end up as an* *additional dead > weight on the old slab*. At best you can conceal cracks and damages in > the old slab. You will not get the strength of two slabs. — > > Q8 How do I purify air from air conditioners? > > A8 Suganthan Sivakkumar, Studied Mechanical Engineering 6y > > *By design, an A/C has filters to purify the air to some extent. The > reason why air filters get clogged* over a period of time, is because of > the air-borne dust. > > *Some air-conditioners claim it has additional filters such as > antibacterial, pollen filters. If you are* satisfied with the features of > your A/C (check manual or website) then you may not need a separate air > filter. > > If you have some health condition or if you prefer much purified air*, > please use a "dedicated" air filtering unit* as fellow Quoran has said. > > Q9 What will be the difference between a government MBBS pass > out and private MBBS pass out student? > > A9 Praveen Tripathi, Psychiatrist. Faculty of Psychiatry Jul 12 > > Let me try to answer this question based on my experience of interacting > with thousands of govt medical college students and hundreds of Pvt medical > college students. > > *Confidence - This is the biggest difference that I* have observed. > Students from government medical colleges are in general a bit more > confident than students from private medical colleges, at least when it > comes to clearing the PG medical entrance exam. The whole thought that I > could clear the tough PMT exam, so I can clear any other exam usually stays > with them. Unfortunately, *I have met many Pvt medical college students > who were really good knowledge wise but they doubted themselves just > because they went to a Pvt medical college.* Once they started doing well > in the subject-wise tests and grand tests, their confidence improved > significantly. > > *Clinical skills- Most Pvt medical college students* are worried about > their clinical skills. They presume that students from government medical > colleges have much better exposure to patients so they will have better > clinical skills. *While it's true that government hospitals have no > dearth of patients (unlike the hospitals attached to Pvt medical colleges), > th*at doesn't usually translate into better clinical skills for medical > students as everybody is focused on studying for entrance exams and much > less on learning clinical skills. Although I must point out that during > the internship, the govt medical college students usually get much better > exposure to basic things like suturing, RT, Foleys etc. How much that > matters, in the long run, is a matter of conjecture. > > *Environment - This is perhaps the most significant* difference. The > environment of govt medical colleges is intensely competitive. *That > pushes almost everybody to work hard, if you don't work hard you develop an > intense fear of being left out.* Some good pvt colleges too have a > competitive environment but some other colleges have a more laid-back > attitude. I believe the environment of your college plays a huge role in > shaping your career. > > *Money - On average students who can afford* private medical colleges > tend to come from financially well-to-do families, which reflects in the > way they dress and talk. > > *Finally, who becomes a better doctor? I think the MBBS college doesn't > play that big a role in this aspect*. > > Becoming a good doctor depends on multiple factors, the most important > being perseverance. *If you can continue honing your skills for years, > you will end up a good doctor, irrespective of whether you went to a govt > college or private.* > > So, in summary, while govt college students do have certain benefits over > Pvt medical colleges, it doesn't mean that students from private colleges > cant excel in PG entrance exams and later life. > > *One final thing that I realised later in life, many doctors who went to > Pvt colleges do exceedingly* well in practice particularly if their > parents were doctors as they have more capital to invest and more > importantly their parents guide them better. > > I hope, this helps. Dr Praveen Tripathi > > Q10 Why does a wooden block not sink into water? > > A10 Scott Withee, M.B.A. in MBA Corporate Finance, Adelphi University > (Graduated 1980)39m > > *For the same reason that a steel ship floats, a wooden block floats. Look > up Archimedes* Principal. Anything placed in or on water displaces a > volume of that water. If the item floats then it displaces a volume of > water whose weight is exactly equal to the items weight. If the item sinks > then it displaces a volume of water exactly equal to its volume. *Since > wood is lighter by volume than water, it floats.* A steel ship floats > because it’s weight is less than the weight of the total volume of water it > would displace for it to sink …. > > *All the above QA are from Quora website on 19-07- 2022.* > > *Quora answers need not be 100% correct answers .* > > *Compiled **and posted by R. Gopala krishnan on 20-07-2022* > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "iyer123" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/iyer123/445610950.2849262.1658282889805%40mail.yahoo.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/iyer123/445610950.2849262.1658282889805%40mail.yahoo.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CAL5XZorj%2BwP%2BXks-DG%2BMKRM%2BaZqh7aQpoYNX1cuvDBusm0rc3w%40mail.gmail.com.
