Octopuses Rewire Brains

Sounds like a 1950s SF horror movie, doesn't it? Don't worry, they rewire their brains -- not ours -- in response to temperature fluctuations:

Octopuses Redesign Their Own Brains

An octopus has about the same number of neurons as a dog and, unlike mammals, has decentralized brains, distributed among its eight arms as well as its head.

The research described in this SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN article explores how octopuses adjust to cold (and sometimes heat) by "editing" their neurons in reaction to the environment. To adapt to seasonal temperature shifts, they "edit their RNA, which is a genetic molecule that carries DNA’s instructions to produce proteins." In addition to cold and heat, this RNA recoding can also promote adaptation to other environmental changes, such as oxygen level.

Most other cephalopods can also "recode the majority of neural proteins," but no mammals do it to anywhere near the same extent. Octopuses and their relatives may need this ability in order to protect their brains in changing environments because, being ectothermic ("cold-blooded"), they can't regulate their body temperature the way we do.

Wouldn't it be nifty if we could rewire our brains in response to environmental and internal factors such as food intake and energy output, to self-regulate our own weight at will? Some team of mad scientists should look into reprogramming the human genome to create that ability.

Other fascinating facts about octopus brain powers, including tool use and the ability to recognize human individuals:

Octopuses Keep Surprising Us

If not for the sad fact that octopuses not only lead solitary lives but also die soon after breeding -- all their offspring grow up as orphans -- and thus can't pass on learned knowledge and skills to the next generation, they might dominate the sea just as we dominate the land.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Stories as a Survival Strategy

A project at John Hopkins University explores how stories enhance learning and memory:

How the Brain Processes Stories

They've even set up a writing contest for flash fiction works to be used in the study. (Open only to Baltimore residents, however.)

According to Janice Chen, one of the professors involved, “Understanding stories is part of the fundamental anatomy of the brain.” Liife consists of "a series of events," and our brains process events into stories.

As a familiar example goes, "The king died, and the queen died" isn't a story; "The king died, and then the queen died of grief" is. This processing function is one reason why it doesn't bother me that the four gospels disagree among themselves about the details of some incidents. Of course different people, retelling the same events, often recall them differently. Each person's mind creates a narrative meaningful to him or her. That doesn't prove the event never happened at all.

Arranging facts into a narrative structure makes them easier to remember, and accurate memory is necessary for survival. Chen notes that "stories across all formats are equally useful at transforming fleeting events into permanent memories." Moreover, narrative helps us learn about cause and effect. We are "programmed to crave" stories for the same reason our brains motivate us to seek food and sex -- for survival.

This study reminds me of discoveries about "mirror neurons," which enable animals as well as humans to empathize with others of their kind and learn by watching someone else perform an action:

New Light on Mirror Neurons

Thus we can also grow empathy, learning to perceive the world through the minds and senses of others, by "witnessing" their actions in stories whether oral, written, acted, or filmed.

As C. S. Lewis says in AN EXPERIMENT IN CRITICISM, "But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see."

Just a few ways in which fiction and its creators are vitally important to the human species!

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Brain-Computer Interface

Elon Musk's Neuralink Corporation is developing an implant intended to treat severe brain disorders and enable paralyzed patients to control devices remotely. As a long-term goal, the company envisions "human enhancement, sometimes called transhumanism."

Neuralink

Here's a brief article on the capacities and limitations of brain implants:

Brain Implants

A Wikipedia article on brain-computer interface technology, which goes back further than I'd realized:

Brain-Computer Interface

In fields such as treatments for paraplegics and quadriplegics, this technology shows promise. It "was first developed to help people paralyzed with spinal injuries or conditions like Locked-in syndrome — when a patient is fully conscious but can't move any part of the body except the eyes — to communicate." Connection between the brain's motor cortex and a computer has enabled a paralyzed patient to type 90 characters per minute. Another kind of implant allowed a man with a robotic hand to feel sensations as if he still had natural skin. A "brain-spine interface" has enabled a man with a spinal cord injury to walk naturally. Deep brain stimulation has been helping people with Parkinson's disease since the 1990s. Most of these applications, however, are still in the experimental stage with human patients or have been tested only on animals. For instance, a monkey fitted with a Neuralink learned to control a pong paddle with its mind.

Will such an implant eventually achieve telepathy, though, as Musk claims? Experts say no, at least not in the current stage of neuroscience, because "we don't really know where or how thoughts are stored in the brain. We can't read thoughts if we don't understand the neuroscience behind them."

What about a paralyzed person controlling a whole robotic body, like the protagonist of AVATAR remotely living in an alien body? Probably not anytime soon, but I was amazed to learn how much closer we are to achieving that phase of "transhumanism" than I'd imagined. If it's ever reached, might the very rich choose to live their later years remotely in beautiful, strong robotic bodies and thereby enjoy a form of eternal youth -- as long as their flesh brains can be kept alive, anyway?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Games Cyborg Brains Play

Researchers at Cortical Labs have designed "cyborg brains," composed of living human brain cells atop a microelectrode array in a petri dish, informally labeled "mini-brains."

Brain Cells Play Pong

The mini-brains were exposed to a simplified version of the game Pong, with no opponent, in which signals from the cyborg brains' neurons hit the "paddle" to propel the "ball." Brett Kagan, chief scientific officer at Cortical Labs, remarks on how fast the biological brains learn the game in contrast to current AI technology. Kagan compares the mini-brains' virtual environment to the Matrix in the movie by that name.

The next step would be to produce organic neurons "integrated with traditional silicon computing" for even more efficient learning. The mini-brains offer an example of intelligence of a sort—they can learn—without consciousness. But suppose they became aware of their own existence, environment, and purpose? What if they aspired to more of a purpose in life than playing solitaire Pong? Of course, they're far from complex enough for that step, but it's fun to imagine. . . .

I'm reminded of a spin-off series from the SWORD ART ONLINE anime and manga, in which virtual human beings are seeded into a computer-simulated world and programmed to evolve a culture. Circumscribed by strict rules built into their environment, they develop a civilization with laws, morals, social classes, and all the components of a society. Furthermore, these experimental life-forms awaken to consciousness. They experience emotions, aspirations, pains, and pleasures as their world grows over many centuries in their time but only months on the scale of outside "reality." Shutting down the experiment would effectively mean annihilating an entire population of living people.

So far, though, the mini-brains described in the article linked above have no experiences other than endless games of Pong. At the end of the article, there's a link to a page about a scientist who tried, with mixed success, to teach rats to play the first-person shooter video game Doom. Will a future mode of entertainment consist of watching lab animals and virtual intelligences compete against each other in computer game tournaments?

Happy New Year! And, to repeat the annual wish of Col. Potter on MASH, "May she be a durn sight better than the last one."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Bird Brains

Research published in the journal SCIENCE in 2020 raises the possibility that crows have mental abilities formerly thought of as restricted to our species and other higher primates:

Crows Are Self-Aware

It's been known for a while that corvids (crows, ravens, jays, etc.), like monkeys and apes, use tools and recognize faces. These birds bring gifts to people they like and never forget people who injure or offend them. Experiments show, however, that they also apparently think about their own thoughts. A brain structure called the pallium, performing the same function as the cerebral cortex in mammals, holds densely packed neurons in greater quantity than in even some much larger animals such as elephants. This arrangement makes up for the smaller body and brain size of birds. The firing of neurons in the crows' brains during the experiment described in the article suggests that crows think about problems in somewhat the same way we do.

Parrots are highly intelligent, too. They don't just "parrot" human speech but often utter words in the proper context, such as asking for what they want or saying "Hello" when people arrive but not when they leave. As the famous African Grey named Alex demonstrated, parrots can work with numbers, too. They also pass some intelligence tests on the same level as five-year-old children:

Parrots Pass Classic Test of Intelligence

Here's a Wikipedia article on bird intelligence:

Bird Intelligence

For me, one exciting implication of these facts is that we now realize an animal doesn't require a large brain to be intelligent. Sapient aliens on other planets wouldn't have to resemble us in size or shape. Imagine a world dominated by brainy birds. With wings instead of arms, birds have limitations on their ability to use tools. What if they evolved with six limbs, though, like all the higher animals in the manga series A CENTAUR'S LIFE? Birds on a planet where the standard higher-life-form body plan includes six limbs rather than four could have legs, wings, and hands. Thus they could develop a civilization with material artifacts recognizable to us as products of higher intellect.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Tyranny of Now

The November/December issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER contains an article by psychologist Stuart Vyse titled "COVID-19 and the Tyranny of Now." The phrase refers to our tendency to choose immediate rewards over potential future benefits. Our instincts drive us in that direction, since we evolved in environments where basing choices on short-term results made sense. There was little point in worrying about one's health in old age when one might get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger long before reaching that stage of life. Vyse's article summarizes this tendency as, "Smaller rewards in the present are chosen over larger ones in the future." Understandably, our first impulse is to go for the immediate, visible reward instead of the hypothetical future one that may or may not become reality. That's why people living in high-risk situations tend to heavily discount the future; if a young man in a dangerous neighborhood frequently sees friends and neighbors getting shot, the wisdom of long-term planning may not seem obvious to him. In the context of his physical and social enviroment, that choice makes sense.

Vyse reflects on climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic as two current high-profile examples. We have immediate experience of the inconveniences and hardships of changing our lifestyles to minimize the effects of those two phenomena. The potential rewards of self-denial, on the other hand—a return to being able to lead "normal" lives without catching the disease, a cleaner and more stable environment—exist in a future we have to take on faith. In connection with the pandemic, the fact that any effect of precautions or lack thereof shows up weeks (at least) after we change our actions makes it harder for us to judge the value of restricting our behavior. Another factor is that a drop in cases as a result of lockdowns can lead to the tempting but irrational response, "What we've been doing has worked, so now we can stop doing it" (my summary of Vyse's analysis). In short, delays are difficult. We have to make a deliberate, analytical effort to resist immediate impulses and embrace long-term gain. As Vyse quotes from an anonymous source, "If the hangover came first, nobody would drink."

Here's an article explaining this phenomenon in terms of a struggle between the logical and emotional parts of the brain:

Why Your Brain Prioritizes Instant Gratification

"The researchers concluded that impulsive choices happen when the emotional part of our brains triumphs over the logical one." The dopamine surge can be hard for the rational brain to resist. The article explores some methods for training oneself to forgo immediate pleasures in favor of later, larger gains, such as managing one's environment to avoid temptation.

This Wikipedia article goes into great detail about the neurological, cognitive, and psychological aspects of delayed gratification:

Delayed Gratification

It devotes a section to the famous Stanford marshmallow experiments of the 1960s and 70s, in which preschoolers were promised two marshmallows if they could resist eating a single marshmallow for a certain time span. Children who succeeded devised strategies to distract themselves or to imagine the tempting treat as something less appetizing. Interestingly, this article reports that, according to some studies, 10% more women than men have the capacity to delay gratification. It also mentions that the ability to exercise that kind of self-control may weaken in old age. "Declines in self-regulation and impulse control in old age predict corresponding declines in reward-delaying strategies...."

It's easy to think of a different reason why some elderly people may abandon the "rational" course of postponing rewards. The choice not to delay gratification may result from a perfectly sensible cost-benefit calculation, rather than surrender to the "emotional brain." In the absence of a diagnosed medical condition that poses an immediate, specific danger, if you're over 90 do you really care whether too much ice cream might make you gain weight or too much steak increase your cholesterol?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Creating Enhanced Brains?

Here's an article about a neuroscience experiment involving "ARHGAP11B, a gene found only in humans," which "is known for its role in expanding neocortex, the part of the brain responsible for higher cognitive functions":

Brain Gene

When the gene was inserted into fetal marmosets (very small monkeys), the neocortices of their brains grew larger and developed more folds, an important feature "because those folds increase the surface area available for brain cells, or neurons, without making the brain too big for the skull." The experiment suggests that this gene was vital in the process of our primate ancestors becoming human. Also, study of the gene may contribute to understanding of and treatment for brain disorders.

One aspect of this discovery that intrigues me is the implication that high intelligence doesn't necessarily require a huge brain. The range of organisms that can display near-human intelligence (hypothetically, on extraterrestrial planets, for example) might be broader than we've assumed. The extraordinary brilliance of such birds as parrots, although presumably unrelated to this gene, confirms that small-brained creatures can be smarter than we might expect.

What about using this kind of genetic manipulation to increase human intelligence? Not surprisingly, a scientist quoted at the end of the article strongly warns against using the technique to "improve" human brains. The treatment given to Charlie in FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON comes to mind. What about creating enhanced animals? As shown in science fiction from H. G. Wells's THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU to Cordwainer Smith's Underpeople stories and beyond, such a procedure, if successful, could raise a host of problems, not least what rights sapient animals should have. Robert Heinlein addresses that question in his novella "Jerry Was a Man" (1947), about an uplifted chimp in a society that essentially uses his kind as slaves.

And what about the miniature brains grown in vitro, which I've mentioned here before?

Mini-Brains

Suppose they were injected with the neocortex-expansion gene? The idea of an artificially grown brain with intelligence but not consciousness raises the intriguing though rather creepy SF prospect of organic computers. Of course, as the article above explains, these clusters of cells are not and, in the present state of research, never could become actual brains. Still, they would make a cool story premise.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Domesticated Brain

Another article about self-domestication:

The Incredible Shrinking Brain

This article gives an overview of a book called THE DOMESTICATED BRAIN, which ranges over many fields such as evolution, childhood development, genetics, neuroscience, and social psychology in an exploration of what makes us human. In domesticating ourselves, we became able to live together in groups, with all the benefits of that lifestyle. As a result, we became more dependent on each other.

One intriguing feature of domestication is that it tends to make animals' brains smaller. That trend applies to human brains, too. Several hypotheses are suggested to explain this phenomenon, but no definite answer is given. It does seem to have some connection with our development into highly social creatures. For one thing, lower levels of aggression mean less testosterone, which is linked to smaller brains.

I wonder whether a reduction in typical brain size might have something to do with our developing a corporate memory. We don't have to rely on our own knowledge for survival. We can draw upon facts and lore known by our neighbors, handed down from our ancestors through tribal traditions, or (once writing is invented) recorded in fixed form to be available to everybody theoretically forever. We don't need to grow our brains to ever-larger size because we have access to an external mind of potentially unlimited scope.

The linked page comprises the preface to the book, THE DOMESTICATED BRAIN, which looks interesting enough that I ordered a copy. It seems to be out of print, but Amazon lists multiple used copies.

When we encounter alien species, will we discover that living in social groups is a prerequisite for advanced intelligence in any species (at least, any humanoid or mammalian creatures)?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Brain-to-Computer Communication

A research project at Stanford University enables paralyzed people to type on computers by moving a cursor with their thoughts:

Brain-Computer Interface

This technology, according to the article, produces the desired output up to four times as fast as previously existing methods. It's supposed to be superior to the eye-tracking method of operating a computer, which sounds to me as if it would be tiring as well as difficult to master.

Imagine combining a perfected brain-computer interface with the Second Life environment discussed a few weeks ago. Individuals locked into their bodies without even the ability to speak might be able to live a fulfilling life in a virtual environment that feels as multidimensional as the "real world."

Or consider the shell people in Anne McCaffrey's THE SHIP WHO SANG series. Such artificial bodies for people with no control over their physical bodies might become more feasible in actuality once the robotic form could be completely operated by thought alone.

Does the interface described in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN article allow speechless people to communicate (through a computer) with something like telepathy? Well, not exactly. The user doesn't beam thoughts through the ether. Wired connections between brain and machine have to be installed. Still, it's an exciting beginning.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Insect Consciousness?

A honeybee scientist, Andrew Barron, and a philosopher, Colin Klein, have collaborated on a study that suggests insects may have consciousness and emotions:

Insects Are Conscious

Does insects' inner life comprise more than simple reflexes? Conventionally, the neocortex is thought to be the site of consciousness. Suppose, rather, the "much more primitive midbrain" synthesizes experience into "a unified, egocentric point of view"? Barron and Klein maintain that insects have midbrain-like neural structures that enable them to "model themselves as they move through space." (The quotations come from an article about this study in SMITHSONIAN magazine.) Insects may feel, at the very least, hunger and pain.

Since I've always shared the prevailing belief that invertebrates don't have enough neural processing capacity to feel anything, this hypothesis strikes me as rather unsettling. Insects do appear to "plan," in a sense, in that they pursue definite goals. They can learn from experience (even flatworms, a much "lower" life form, can do that), so do they have "memory"? They make choices between alternatives, so are they "deciding"?

Whether insects have consciousness and the ability to think depends, of course, on how we define "conscious" and "think." C. S. Lewis in THE PROBLEM OF PAIN points out that an unconscious human body may reflexively react to hurtful stimuli although obviously without being aware of pain. If by "self-awareness" we mean the ability to meditate on our own existence, possibly only human beings have that quality. Self-awareness on the level of recognizing one's own reflection in a mirror is confined to us, some primates, and a select few other animals. If "thinking" means only abstract thought that can be formulated in words, by definition we classify ourselves as the only thinking organisms on the planet. If any kind of problem-solving equals thinking, the field becomes much wider.

I once read a story (can't remember the title or author) in which one character tries to convince another that thought isn't confined to human beings and higher animals. He says, "With what does a plant think, in the absence of a brain?"—classifying a plant's phototropism as a form of thinking.

Barron and Klein hope investigating the mental lives of insects may throw light on the origins of subjectivity in "higher" species, including ourselves.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Value of Boredom

A recent scientific study agrees with Neil Gaiman that boredom stimulates creativity:

Boredom, the Ultimate Creativity Hack

As Gaiman puts it, "boredom is the place you create from in self-defense." Instead of filling every minute with "productive" activity, such as scanning through phone messages while waiting in lines, we should embrace waiting times as a chance to "do nothing." The brain isn't literally doing nothing, though; those "empty" snippets of time can foster daydreaming, which leads to enhanced creativity.

Reminds me of those summer vacation days (in the childhood of our generation) when a mother would shove kids outside and order them to find something to do (with the spoken or unspoken corollary, "or I'll find something for you to do"). We usually came up with an activity to engage our imaginations, even if it was only playing school with our oldest sister as the teacher passing on what she'd learned in the previous term.

When we set aside electronic distractions and let our thoughts wander during down time, the mind "can take you into new and interesting territory." Okay, I can accept that premise. This article, though, focuses on high-tech means of filling every minute with activity. What about people like me, who carry books (in my case, usually "tree" books) everywhere? I don't read in store lines, of course, except maybe the magazine I've put in my cart to buy, but I'm always reading books in waiting rooms, etc. Sitting there doing "nothing" would lead to more impatience and anxiety than productive daydreaming. I wouldn't go anywhere without a book on hand, including in cars while other people are driving. I'm sure many if not most avid readers follow the same practice. How does that habit fit in with the recommendations of this article?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Latest Cyborg Leap Forward

Medical researchers at Ohio State University have invented a device called NeuroLife, which enables a quadriplegic to move his hand:

Brain Implant

One end of the device is implanted in his brain, with external cables that run down to his hand, bypassing the damaged spinal cord. NeuroLife transmits nerve impulses generated by algorithms based on recordings of activity in the motor cortex (if I understand the explanation correctly). The experimental subject has regained enough precision control of his hand muscles to pick up objects and even play video games. I wonder whether he can use a keyboard; the article doesn't say. That would really be a leap forward. (I know about speech-to-text programs, of course, and many people seem to love them; if I were paralyzed, though, I would have a lot of trouble "writing" by dictation and would wish for the ability to type.)

This technique took a decade of development, and the patient had to undergo months of training to get the full benefit. So it won't be an instant fix, even when it becomes publicly available (and the article doesn't mention when that might happen). Still, it's a wondrous achievement.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Memory Hacking

More brain news: It may someday be possible to erase or modify memories or even implant false memories:

Memory Hacking

In the short term, the most practical application of these techniques may be to help people suffering from phobias by changing the emotional impact associated with the relevant memories. A mouse experiment demonstrates the manipulation of the rodent's brain by making it fearful or confident at the will of the experimenter.

This research builds on discoveries that memory is far from the infallible recording of events it was once thought to be, a permanent trace that scientists might someday be able to replay on command. False memories commonly form in everyday life:

"Indeed, new evidence suggests our memories are imperfect and malleable constructs that are constantly changing over time. Each time we recall a memory, we go through the process of revising it. That means any time we recall an old memory, we’re disrupting it. Sadly, the fidelity of our memories degrades over time."

The article introduces a twelve-year-old boy who's a striking exception, a case of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory. Instead of needing help to recall experiences, he literally can't forget anything. This trait isn't an unambiguous superpower. The ability to forget can be a blessing.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Genetic Mechanism By Which Love Conquers All

Looking for an article posted online because I had browsed it in a waiting room in a paper copy of DISCOVER magazine, I got stuck reading this article:

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/15-brain-switches-that-can-turn-mental-illness-on-off

See, that's the problem with being "a reader" -- doesn't much matter what words are stuck in front of one's nose, you'll read them. Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, 3 thousand year old grocery lists, doesn't matter. Everything is fascinating to a writer.

That's one of the ways you know you're a writer. Everything implies something that could make a story.

So I got stuck on this article on mental illness, a subject which bores me stiff, so of course I got all excited about the Romance story potential in it.

------Quote From Discover--------

Each of our brain cells contains the same set of genes we were born with and uses those genes to build proteins and other molecules throughout its life. The sequence of DNA in those genes is pretty much fixed. For experiences to produce long-term changes in how we behave, they must be somehow able to reach into our brains and alter how those genes work.

Neuroscientists are now mapping that mechanism. Our experiences don’t actually rewrite the genes in our brains, it seems, but they can do something almost as powerful. Glued to our DNA are thousands of molecules that shut some genes off and allow other genes to be active. Our experiences can physically rearrange the pattern of those switches and, in the process, change the way our brain cells work.
------END QUOTE-------------

So then I read the beginning of the article which explains how lab experiments with mice show that a baby mouse that got attention from its mother (licking its fur) grows up to be harder to startle and more willing to explore while a baby mouse that didn't get attention grows up to be a scaredy cat.

Receiving affection changes you. 

I haven't found experiments on how giving affection changes you but I bet it does.

The article does describe how certain proteins stuck to or surrounding certain genes control whether that gene expresses in your body, or not.

GENES are not DESTINY.

Genes may set up the dropdown menu from which your life-choices are made, but experiences can "gray out" items on that dropdown menu.

In other words, they are getting close to solving the problem of "Nature vs. Nurture" and the solution they see right now is the one I've always thought the most likely -- it's not either-or, it's both-and.

Nature (your genes, your astrological natal chart, your starting conditions you can't change now) does set up parameters which govern the shape of your life. But nurture - the things that happen to you, that you draw from your environment by dint of being you - can alter the way your Nature expresses itself.

Then I saw this article on a Discover blog taking another "discovery" to task for being ill designed and executed:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/

----QUOTE blog--------

that around ~30% of the outcome of financial decisions are heritable. That is, that ~30% of the variation in financial decisions within the population can be accounted for by variation in genes within the population.

-----END QUOTE-------


The blogger challenges the connection between genes and financial decisions, and I don't buy that connection either.

BUT WHAT IF....?????

It makes a great SFR premise, doesn't it?  Your wealth is genetic? 

-------Quote blog--------
Over time shared home environment, what your parents model and teach you, tends to wear off, and gene-environment correlation increases the correspondences between particular genetic makeups and behaviors (i.e., identical twins resemble each other more at maturity than in their youth). For most behavioral traits heritability increases with age.
-------End Quote---------

The idea that your original nurture effect wears off with the years does not correlate well with the idea that these proteins wrapped around your genes can cause the genes to express or not express, and that can be determined by nurture - and changed later by experience or therapy.

In other words, human personality remains PLASTIC through life.

If that's true, then love counts. Finding your soul-mate can change everything. Finding your connection with the Divine can provide the strength to kick an addiction and change your life.

Back to the Discover article on mental illness.

Look at the last page of the article. "Epigenetic" is the term for the proteins bound around genes that control whether the gene expresses. 

-------Quote Discover---------
Depression, for example, may be in many ways an epigenetic disease. Several groups of scientists have mimicked human depression in mice by pitting the animals against each other. If a mouse loses a series of fights against dominant rivals, its personality shifts. It shies away from contact with other mice and moves around less. When the mice are given access to a machine that lets them administer cocaine to themselves, the defeated mice take more of it.
--------End Discover Quote------

The article then describes work on brains of deceased humans, some who lived out normal lives and some who committed suicide, showing a difference very similar to the differences found in defeated mice. The article ends with work done on mice that were depressed by being defeated. An injection into the brain caused the symptoms of depression to dissipate even in adulthood by changing the epigenetics. 

Now, nobody is going to investigate whether finding love in adulthood can change the brain chemistry of humans enough to vanquish depression or other such illnesses.

Nobody is going to investigate the effects on humans of just plain acceptance by others, or niceness in society.

But what is here does suggest that the great dust-up over bullying in school yards may have substance behind it. Being beaten up by mobs of kids can really change you and your chances of success in the world.

Some other kind of experience may predispose humans to diving into a cycle of poverty, gambling, or being unable to hold a job.

There may be more kinds of "assassination" than simply murdering someone, or "character assassination."

It may be that simple unkind words can destroy a life.

Speaking unkindly about anyone may in fact be an act of aggression that has dire consequences.  Maybe it might have consequences to the speaker.

If that's true, then a kind word may save a life, perhaps your own.

Do any of the writers here see the PNR applications to the novel structure element called CONFLICT?  If you write Urban Fantasy with magical rules, this kind of "magic" can make a great conflict source, thematic source, character quirk, or plot.  And we're not even touching on love potions and the ethics behind that.

Faith Healing is for real?

Can you heal yourself by changing your opinion of yourself?

How do you go about that? Do you need help from outside? Can the help of a clinician really do the trick? Or do you need true love?  Or will you resort to an injection into the brain? 

Is the real barrier to finding true love somehow in your brain chemistry itself? Do you need an injection into the brain in order to be capable of pair-bonding?

The SF possibilities for SFR are endless here.

What about kids decanted from artificial wombs then raised in a creche among mostly other kids?

What about kids raised in total isolation from other kids?

If you've been following the developments in nano fabrication, you can see how close we are to having brain implants that can do things like fix blindness and deafness caused by brain malfunctions. All kinds of nano-implants for various purposes are ridiculously close. Research money is currently pouring into projects to use nano-tech to bring solar-power up to where it's cheaper than say coal-fired power plant power.

The spinoff from that power research could be the brain implants, and other nerve replacements that could cure, say, paralysis.

Between implants and chemistry -- personalities can be engineered so that people grow up to have a "talent" and ability for specific jobs.  Do you want government deciding your career before you are born and tailoring you to it? 

Maybe stupidity can be cured? Maybe we can all be engineers?  Who decides? 

The question is, do we want these things imposed from outside, or are we as a society going to get busy and cure most of it with love?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com