The secrets of the Order of the Brain

The amount of research being done in the field of neurosciences is staggering at present. More amazing are the discoveries being made each passing day. They don’t command headlines because most of us can’t understand the stuff, let alone interpret these to make them accessible to the layman.

I have a strong suspicion they are a helluva lot more important and relevant than most of what does make the headlines. Why is that?

Proposition 1: The media are trapped in the conventional wisdom that dictates (a) politics; (b) gore; (c) sport; (d) crime; and (e) celebrity are the most important things to know about — in that order. So they feed us a diet of these as “the way things are”.

Proposition 2: The five points in Proposition 1 are, indeed, the most important things to know and the media are simply doing their job of holding a mirror up to society.

Proposition 3: We’re too wrapped up in our own affairs to care.

These three propositions have much in common with the philosophical approach commonly associated with Hegel of thesis-antithesis-synthesis — except that the synthesis becomes not a marriage of opposites or the resolution of conflict, but the simple tangential rejection of both. This was the approach perfected by the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Monty Python (who was, in fact, the synthesis of six different individuals — interesting, huh?).

Monotheistic religions insist God answers every prayer. He says “OK”, “no” or “maybe”. Since those three answers pretty much cover every conceivable base, religious people tend to accept that as the state of affairs. Outlanders such as me on the fringes think that answer is too easy and too limiting of God.

Denzel Washington as ATF agent Doug Carlin has one of those quintessential lines in Déjà Vu: “Satan reasons like a man, but God thinks of eternity.”

The movie is a thriller that pivots on a Timothy McVeigh-type of all-American terrorist (Jim Caveziel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ — paradoxical, huh?) who blows up a ferry in that most mesmerising of cities, New Orleans. The plot involves the so-called Einstein-Rosen Bridge or wormhole theory that space/time, conventionally thought of as being a straight line from past to future, can be folded like a flat sheet of paper so that two points in time connect and one could instantaneously travel backwards or forwards in time. It was M-Net’s Sunday-night movie last night, though the concept is a sci-fi classic.

But let’s travel back to why the public knows so little about what incredible advances are being made in research about the brain (the grey stuff) and the mind (what it does).

It is largely attributable to the fact that news media simply lack the expertise to tell the story. So they ignore its importance and editors scuttle back to the comfort of Proposition 1, and take a load off by believing Proposition 2 will ensure sales because of — or despite — Proposition 3.

See, the happy synthesis is made by marrying Hegel and Python.

But it’s actually quite sad. Because day by day neuroscientists and psychiatrists (including the vast gamut of ancillary disciplines linked to each) are finding out that they’re actually closer than they ever thought before. And getting closer every day.

By neurologists understanding brain chemistry and the dizzying interplay of electrical impulses along neural pathways, psychiatrists are empowered better to deal with mental disorders, understand how we learn and remember, and why there are such crucial differences between my brother, my two sisters and me.

As researchers using fMRI scans and three-dimensional computer imaging understand more about what parts of our brains and nervous system light up in response to chemical interactions, we are rapidly closing in on answering the really big questions.

Such questions as: Are great leaders born that way? Does violence run in families? Why are Venus and Serena Williams such exquisite athletes and their three sisters spectators? Can we prevent a serial killer or paedophile from living a life of horror by the early identification of patterns and a simple short regimen of therapy? Why are pop stars prone to substance abuse and volatile relationships, and how come there isn’t a distant scion of Mozart churning out sublime music in our mediocre industry today?

There the media would be vindicated in their conventional wisdom — politics, gore, sport, crime and celebrities. We wouldn’t only know that if it bleeds, it leads — we would know why. And we would have done something like making a media wormhole.

But until we expand the existing microscopic base of journalists and writers who can make science accessible, relevant and entertaining, we can’t expect society to give a damn about neuroscience and psychiatry, now can we? Meanwhile, for those of you who have read this far, check out recent copies of Time and National Geographic.

Now it’s time to go to bed and say my prayers.