European explorers who visited the island of Papua New Guinea in the 1950’s noticed that the Fore tribe suffered from a strange disease. The patient would initially have headaches, joint pains and tremors. They then show signs of weakness and are unable to stand. The shaking of limbs, a classic symptom of the disease, becomes progressively worse as the disease progresses (“kuru” is a Fore word for “to shake”). In the late stages, the patient shows other neurological symptoms such as uncontrollable laughter and emotional instability. By this point, their tremors and ataxia (lack of coordination) is so severe that they cannot sit without support. They may also suffer from inability to speak or swallow, become unresponsive to their surroundings, develop ulcers on the skin and become incontinent (cannot hold urine/faeces). Within 3 months to 2 years after the symptoms develop, the patient dies.
Kuru is exclusive to the Fore tribe and medical researchers were puzzled by the nature of this disease. It is incurable and takes more than 10 years to develop (from the time of infection). In 1961, Dr Michael Alpers discovered that kuru was spread due to a certain cultural behaviour within the tribe – cannibalism. The Fore tribe had a tradition of eating the corpse of a deceased tribe member at the funeral as to return their life force back in to the tribe. Of course, this involved the consumption of the brain as well.
It was discovered that kuru is caused by a strange pathogen known as a prion. Prions are misfolded pieces of proteins that cause disease by converting the body’s proteins into “wrong” proteins. These new prions then convert more proteins until the body is filled with deposits of such proteins. Prions mainly affect the brain and cause spongiform encephalopathy – meaning that the brain becomes sponge-like and full of holes. The most famous example of prion disease is mad cow disease.
After colonists took over Papua New Guinea, cannibalism was banned and kuru faded away. This was proof that cannibalism was what spread the prion from one victim to another. It was also discovered that women and children had a higher incidence as men would have priority in choosing what part of the body to eat first. As with lions, the men always chose muscles first and women and children would often finish the organs such as the brain. As prions are indestructible, it cannot be treated, cured or prevented (other than not eating brains). It also means that it transmits perfectly from a dead patient to an unsuspecting victim who is feasting on the infected brain.
A disease that causes the brain to disintegrate, causing limb shaking and inability to walk, spread by the ingestion of brains. Is it possible that zombies are caused by eating brains and not the other way around?
There is a very rare, disturbing and interesting medical condition called alien hand syndrome (AHS). An individual with this neurological disorder has full sensation in the rogue hand, but is unable to control its movements and does not feel that it is a part of their body. The hand becomes personified, as if it has a will of its own, and its owner will usually deny ownership of the limb.
Though AHS was first identified in 1908, it was not clearly defined until 1972. Depending on the cause of the injury, the movements may be random or purposeful, and may affect the dominant or non-dominant hand. The symptoms are brought on by an injury to the brain, such as head trauma, stroke, tumour, or infection. It can also be a side effect of a certain kind of brain surgery where the patient has the two hemispheres of the brain separated to relieve severe epilepsy.
If the AHS is caused by separation of the corpus callosum (the area of the brain that connects the two halves of the brain) by surgery or injury, the movements are usually complex purposeful behaviour, such as compulsive manipulation of tools, undoing buttons, or tearing clothes. For example, a right-handed person is left-hemisphere-dominant, thus their left hand (controlled by the right hemisphere) will become “alien”. Sometimes the sufferer is completely unaware of what the hand is doing until it is brought to his or her attention, or until they happen to see it themselves.
Strangely, many of the alien hand’s actions are the complete opposite of what the person is doing with the other hand. For example, if they start packing a suitcase, the alien hand will unpack it. It is believed that one half of the brain (usually the right brain) is unaware of why the other hand is doing something (due to the lack of connection between the two hemispheres) and so proceeds to “correct” it. There are also reports of the alien hand attacking the patient by hitting them or even trying to strangle them in their sleep.
There is currently no treatment for alien hand syndrome, but the symptoms can often be relieved by giving the rogue hand an object to manipulate, to keep it occupied. One patient whose alien hand had a compulsion of holding on to door handles or other objects to stop the man from walking was given a cane. The alien hand would grab on to the cane and not interfere with the patient’s walking.
There is currently no treatment for alien hand syndrome, but the symptoms can often be relieved by giving the rogue hand an object to manipulate to keep it occupied. One patient whose alien hand had a compulsion of holding on to door handles or other objects to stop the man from walking was given a cane. The alien hand would grab on to the cane and not interfere with the patient’s walking.
Although it is a distressing condition, some patients learn to live with the disease. For instance, when one patient’s alien hand kept throwing away the cigarette her dominant hand put in her mouth, she shrugged and said: “I guess ‘he’ doesn’t want me to smoke that”. Perhaps the alien hand is simply a way for the subconscious mind to physically act on the conscious mind.
In up to 80% cases of amputations, a strange phenomenon occurs where the amputee reports sensation or even severe pain where the limb has been amputated. It was noticed in field hospitals during wars when a soldier would wake up and ask someone to scratch his leg – which was no longer attached to his body. The sensation can be so powerful that victims actively believe that their phantom limb can interact with real objects. For example, there have been case reports of patients trying to pick up a cup with an amputated arm and becoming frustrated with their inability to.
Phantom limb pain may persist even after the amputee realises the limb is no longer there. The basis for phantom limb pain is a neurological system called the cortical homunculus. The cortical homunculus is a concept that the part of the brain responsible for sensation and movement is mapped out so that each part corresponds to a part of the body (see picture). For example, the top of the primary somatosensory and motor cortices (said parts of the brain) is responsible for foot sensation and movement while the side receives information from and sends signals to the face. It lets the brain construct an image of what the body looks like from sensory information it collates from various body parts. It is suggested that phantom limb pain is caused by a remapping of the cortical homunculus, fooling the brain to think that the limb is there even if it has been physically cut off. This also explains a similar condition called supernumerary phantom limb, where the brain believes there is an extra limb (e.g. a third arm).
As the homunculus concept is a recent idea, treatment options had not advanced much until the late 1990s. In 1998, a neuroscientist called Dr. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran devised a method called the mirror box treatment. He noticed that victims of phantom limb pain (PLP) had paralysis or pain in the limb just before the amputation (such as tightly gripping something before the arm got blown up by a mine), suggesting that PLP may be a form of learned paralysis. This means that the brain believes that the arm is still paralysed and any movement causes an uncomfortable sensation as the brain thinks the limb is contorted into a painful position. To fix this problem, Dr. Ramachandran invented a box with two holes, each going into a separate compartment. One compartment is for the good arm while the other has a mirror positioned on an angle to reflect the other arm (instead of seeing the stub they put in the hole). He would then instruct the patient to perform symmetric movements with both hands while looking at the reflected arm. For example, he would tell the patient to squeeze their “fists” tightly as possible and then let go. Through this procedure, the brain is retrained to let go of the perceived paralysis and pain as it is tricked in to thinking that the arm is healthy again. The mirror box therapy drastically improved the outcome and quality of life of PLP patients through the power of illusions.
Every person has had the experience of having a few seconds of brilliance just before their consciousness slips into sleep. During this short moment, we have some of the most creative and innovative ideas. Unfortunately, this is all lost by the time we wake up. This state is known as the hypnagogic state and has been well known since ancient Greece. Many philosophers and writers such as Aristotle and Edgar Allan Poe have written on the subject and how they received some of their greatest ideas in this state.
Recent researches show that during hypnagogia, thought processes and cognition vastly differs to normal wakefulness. It appears that hypnagogic cognition is more based on the subconscious mind, with people in this state being more open to suggestion (e.g. hypnosis). Ideas seem to flow in a fluid yet illogical way and they are based on external stimuli, thus explaining the heightened suggestibility as the brain incorporates the surrounding into its thought process. The thought process is also less restricted, leading to openness and sensitivity. A process called autosymbolism occurs where abstract ideas that we are thinking are converted into concrete images. This explains the artistic inspiration seen in hypnagogia.
One of the more pronounced phenomena of hypnagogia is insight. It has been noted by many people throughout history that the moment before sleep is when we have the best ideas. For example, a chemist called August Kekulé realised that benzene was a ring structure after seeing an image of snakes biting each other’s tails to form a ring. Because of this, many famous artists and inventors tried to harness the power of hypnagogia through techniques such as the Dalí nap. Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton, Beethoven and Richard Wagner also practised similar techniques to gain insight into a problem that they were trying to solve or bring fresh ideas.
Another fascinating side of hypnagogia is the strange sensory phenomena associated with it. As in the case of sleep paralysis (which usually occurs in hypnapomp – the state between sleep and waking up), people often report strong hallucinations in the form of bright colours, geometric shapes, or even nightmarish visions (such as a ghost sitting on your chest). Other senses are affected as well, such as hearing whispering (commonly associated with the nightmarish hallucinations mentioned above) or out-of-body experiences. Hypnic jerks are also common, where the person jerks awake just before drifting off to sleep. This is thought to be caused by the brain misinterpreting sleep as “death” or the body shutting down, leading it to jolt the system back to life.
Finally, an interesting psychological phenomenon is the Tetris effect, where people who have spent a prolonged time on one activity cannot stop seeing images and thinking about that activity in the hypnagogic state. This was seen in people who had played too much Tetris seeing coloured bricks before they went to sleep. Other common versions of the Tetris effect include chess boards and pieces, feeling waves after being at sea and seeing words and numbers after working on documents for a long time.
The combination of insight, creativity and sensory illusions leads to hypnagogia causing strange “experiences”. Ergo, hypnagogia is now thought to explain many supernatural experiences such as ghost sightings, UFO abductions, premonitions and visions.
Often in life, we find that other people can be idiots, evil or both. Whether it be the girl working in the cafe that forgot your order, or your girlfriend who says she was late because of traffic, or the bastard that takes the last slice of pizza. But then, when we do that exact same thing that annoyed us so much when someone else did it, we somehow always find an excuse that rationalises our act.
This can be explained by the phenomenon of special pleading. Instead of acknowledging the fact that what you did was incredibly rude or obnoxious, your brain automatically creates an exception to the rule. You forgot that customer’s order because you were having a bad day. You were actually late because of traffic. You took that last slice of pizza because you did not have as much as the others and everyone else looked full. This phenomenon rids us of feeling guilt after an “immoral” act and also enables our hypocrisy.
The best part is that we do not consciously know of our hypocrisy. The brain quickly devises a clever reason to explain why you are the exception to the rule, while everyone else is not. The reason is, as with so many other psychological phenomena, cognitive dissonance. The brain cannot comprehend that you would do something you find so detestable when someone else does it, so it forces itself to believe the reason it pulled out of the air to not feel guilty, as it is the only reason the brain can think of that explains your behaviour. Furthermore, as sometimes the excuses are true, our hypocrisy is reinforced and we continuously disobey the golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
Perhaps the more realistic, platinum rule should be: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you…UNLESS”. It may not be a good moral system, but it sure explains the human condition of being an ass.
A stroke is caused by a disruption in the supply of blood to the brain, which leads to cell death as oxygen is required. There are two types: ischaemic (where a clot cuts off blood supply to an area of the brain by blocking an artery) or haemorrhagic (when a blood vessel ruptures and leaks blood instead of delivering it to tissue). The most common cause of a stroke is a clot that made its way up to carotid arteries into the brain until it wedges in small vessel. There are many risk factors for blood clots, such as smoking, high cholesterol levels, atrial fibrillation and long distance flights.
Because the brain is always in high demand of oxygen (taking 20% of the total oxygen available), strokes can produce devastating effects within minutes. 5 minutes of oxygen deprivation can lead to irreversible cell death, a principle that is also used in cases of shock, where the blood pressure is too low to supply organs, or cardiac arrest. Therefore, it is crucial to recognise a stroke early so that an ambulance may arrive and deliver clot-busting medication such as streptokinase.
The FAST mnemonic is an effective way of remembering the common signs of a stroke. It is also useful in reminding people to respond fast.
F – Facial weakness: Is the person’s smile crooked? Disrupted brain function causes facial weakness on the opposite side. The weakness is usually seen around the mouth or eyes.
A – Arm weakness: Can the person keep both arms outstretched? This is related to motor function of the brain.
S – Speech difficulty: Is the person’s speech slurring or are they having problems understanding speech? This is a combined result of impaired motor function and speech centres of the brain.
Unlike diseases such as tuberculosis or cancer, some disease processes are known to kill a human being within an hour of onset. Other than the obvious causes such as decapitation, massive bleeding or any other trauma-related injuries, these diseases tend to be cardiac or respiratory in origin.
A common example is coronary artery disease, where the blood vessel providing blood to an area of the heart becomes completely blocked by stenosis (narrowing, often by atherosclerosis) or a clot. This results in immediate ischaemia (lack of oxygen) to heart muscles, which causes cell death. This produces scar tissue which disrupts the electrical activity of the heart, which may lead to a condition called ventricular fibrillation where the heart beats in an uncontrolled, erratic manner. When in VF, the heart effectively becomes useless as it cannot coordinate proper pumping function. Blood circulation stops and the patient goes in to multiple organ failure (the brain goes first) within a very short time. Although it can kill within a short time, early identification and treatment may be able to prevent VF from occurring and save the patient’s life. If VF does occur, it is crucial to begin CPR or use a defibrillator if available.
VF can also occur in other situations. For example, there is a genetic condition called long QT syndrome which predisposes the patient to spontaneous arrhythmias (electrical abnormalities in the heart). Even becoming too excited can sometimes set off a VF in some LQTS patients, thus they require an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) to shock their heart back in to normal rhythm every time they develop an arrhythmia.
Some other causes of sudden death include: aortic dissection (tearing of the aorta that may cause massive internal bleeding), pulmonary embolism (a clot obstructs blood flow in the lung, stopping circulation), commotio cordis (a blow to the heart at a certain moment in the heart rhythm triggers VF), ruptured brain aneurysm (ballooning of an artery in the brain), anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction that cuts off airflow to the lungs) and poisoning (various mechanisms, mainly related to disrupting cellular function).
Death can strike swiftly, even from within your body.
The Faroe Islands are a group of islands between Scotland and Iceland in the North Atlantic Ocean. Although a small nation, they are known to the outside world for their tradition of whaling – specifically pilot whales that are native to the North Atlantic Ocean. The media often show photos of bloody shorelines with a line of whale carcasses, decrying the so-called “inhumane hunting” of the whales. The dramatic scene and cuteness of the whales seems to appeal to the masses and has caused quite a controversy regarding the Faroese tradition, known as grindadráp. However, the media often tells a misinformed story regarding the whaling. One thing to know is that Faroese whaling is fundamentally different to whaling seen in other parts of the world, such as Japanese whaling.
The Faroese have been killing pilot whales for food for the past millennium and have done so in the most humane and sustainable way possible. Despite popular belief, the pilot whales are not endangered and in fact overpopulated in the North Atlantic Ocean. As they are carnivorous, an overpopulation of the whales causes a shortage in fish. Fishing is the major industry in the Faroe Islands and constitutes their livelihood; so ironically, the pilot whales can endanger the Faroese people by consuming all the fish in the surrounding sea. Thus, the Faroese kill a small portion of the whale population (roughly 0.1%, a completely sustainable rate) to balance the ecosystem while protecting their most important industry and their livelihood.
Faroese whaling is not commercial and only enough whales are killed to provide enough food for the people (equally distributed to the participating families). The killing is not for fun or money, but simply to support the lives of the people. As such, the Faroese have also come up with the most humane way to kill the animals.
When whaling season starts and the pilot whales come near the shore, “drives” are initiated where a semi-circle of boats herd nearby whales towards the shoreline (only whales near the shoreline are killed). When the whales approach the shore, the people use blunt blowhole hooks that catch the whales without causing wounds (unlike harpoons and spears) and draw them closer to shore. Only adult males are drawn in (no females or babies) and only enough that can be killed swiftly are drawn in.
Once drawn in, the men quickly use their knives to cut the spinal cord and artery supplying the brain, killing the whale within 15 seconds of being beached. It is the quickest and most painless way to kill the whales and only those who have been trained to do it properly are allowed to kill. As a major artery is cut and whales are big mammals, a large volume of blood is released, dying the sea a bloody red colour. The whales are then divvied up equally, with no part of the whale going to waste. As only nearby whales are killed, sometimes no whales are killed for years.
Unfortunately, due to pollution in the ocean, there have been increasing levels of heavy metals such as mercury found in the whale meat. This is endangering the health of the island population and the deeply engrained tradition of grindadráp. The saddest part is that the pollution is from industrialised countries such as USA and European countries, not the Faroe Islands. Yet the Faroese have to put up with bigotry from those who do not understand the culture, process or the reasoning behind the tradition. If anything, it is by far more humane and sustainable than killing animals after a lifetime of captivity then sending them to a slaughterhouse.
It is extremely important to see the truth behind controversial issues such as this, as more often than not the truth is shrouded by bigotry and subjective comments by people who have only seen the issue through some photographs on the internet.
(Notice the single, deep horizontal slash through the dorsal aspect of the spinal cord, just before the brainstem. Such a cut would immediately sever any pain signals and cause almost instant unconsciousness due to ischaemia of the brain.)
How many friends can a person have? Believe it or not, science has solved this question. An anthropologist called Robin Dunbar studied various societies, tribes and primate groups to determine how many members a group can have to maintain stability. He discovered that the ideal size for a group of humans was about 150.
What happens if there are more than 150 people in a group? This is easily explained by the following thought experiment. Imagine that you have a friend called Mr. White. Add a personality to him – flesh him out as a person. Next, you make another friend called Mr. Red. Then Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Maroon… At a certain point, you will no longer remember the name or personality of your “friend” and not even care about that person. This is the limit set by our brains – known as Dunbar’s number, or more colloquially the Monkeysphere.
Any person outside of this Monkeysphere is not of your concern. Once you saturate your brain with 150 relationships, the brain ceases to care about other people. Interestingly, the Monkeysphere is directly related to the size of the neocortex (the part of the brain responsible for higher order thinking). For example, most monkeys can only operate in troupes of 50 or so.
The Monkeysphere can be defined as the group of people that you conceptualise as “people”. Because of this limitation, we are physiologically incapable of caring about everyone in the world. For example, we are highly unlikely to be concerned about the welfare of the janitor at work compared to a loved one. As politically incorrect it may be, the brain sees the janitor as “the object that cleans the building” rather than a human being. You may “care” about the janitor in the sense that you greet him in the corridor, but there is a limit to this. This effect actually explains quite well why society is dysfunctional in general.
Because we do not see people outside the Monkeysphere as “people”, they mean less to us. Stalin once said that “one death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic”. Similarly, the death of a family member is devastating but 10,000 people dying in a foreign country from war does not have the same emotional effect. Furthermore, if a stranger was to die in front of your eyes, you would still not be nearly as devastated as the death of someone you are close to.
Also, as we do not feel connected to these “outsiders”, we are much more prone to act rude or aggressively. For example, one may insult other drivers with the most colourful words on the road, but would (hopefully) never say those words to a friend.
This expands to a greater scale in the context of survival. We are wired to put the need of the members of our Monkeysphere ahead of those outside of it. Thus, we would not steal from our friends but openly evade taxes as we see the government and others as a cold, faceless body. It does not occur to us that through our actions, we are harming other human beings. The same applies to our view of corporations; despite being made up of real people, we only see them as heartless machines actively conspiring against us.
What if the scale was then expanded to countries? If we do not see a person on the other side of the road as a human being, it is extremely unlikely we would register a foreigner as one. This explains why racism and stereotyping is so common in human societies. Although liberal-minded people would like to believe that we should treat every human being like we treat our mothers, our brain is incapable of it. In fact, it is much more likely we would see those people as acting against our interests by “stealing jobs” and so forth. Thus, racism is a hard-wired behaviour to protect the best interest of our Monkeysphere.
We have established that it is impossible to worry about the seven billion strangers in this world. This brings us to an important point: it is just as impossible to make “them” interested in “you”. It is a cold, hard fact that if you are outside of their Monkeysphere, people will not care about you. Ergo, they treat you badly, put you down, steal from you and downright ignore you. In fact, cognitive dissonance means you are even less likely to care for people outside the Monkeysphere as your brain actively rejects people from getting closer to your Monkeysphere, exceeding the preset limit of 150 people. This is why propaganda always focusses on dehumanising the enemy and why people seeking votes and attention pull at sympathy strings – to try get as close to your Monkeysphere as possible.
Many people will lament how we are not monkeys and the Monkeysphere does not apply to us. We have laws, ethics and “humanity”. However, we cannot escape our primitive psychological behaviours and this is reflected in societies filled with crime, unhappiness and a general disinterest in people not related to yourself. This is why city-dwellers tend to be less friendly than villagers, as there are too many people to fit in one, happy Monkeysphere. In fact, monkeys may have more functional societies than us because they hardly ever exceed their own Monkeyspheres (which may also explain why they rarely have wars). The same can be said of tribes and villages of the past.
Ironically, the development of society has been based around working around the limitations of the Monkeysphere – a theoretically ideal society. By living in larger groups, humans can achieve greater feats such as industries and large-scale economies. Although we suffer the consequences of racism and crime, we have become very effective in survival.
Economics is based on the Monkeysphere too. As we only care about our Monkeysphere, there is no reason for us to be concerned about the needs of others. So when a system such as communism forces us to share our bananas, we become infuriated that we have to give up our bananas to people we do not know. But in capitalism, every individual can pick bananas for just ourselves and those we care about. The system thrives as each Monkeysphere acts dynamically and everyone is happy. This is the concept of the invisible hand that is the foundation of modern economics.
But still, the concept of countries means that we have to share the burden of millions of people we do not care about in the form of taxes and civil duties. This makes us unhappy. So what can we do?
Firstly, realise that you are to others what others are to you. If you find a certain person on television as annoying and irrational, chances are that someone else sees you in that light. You are limited to your Monkeysphere of 150 people and people outside of it are in their own Monkeyspheres.
Secondly, understand that no one is special. There are no heroes or perfect beings. Everyone is a human being and prone to making mistakes and acting “human”. Therefore, we cannot idolise people and be disappointed by their actions. This also means that you cannot judge another person and consider their words and actions as insignificant, as they are just as human as you.
Lastly, never simplify things. The world is not simple. It cannot be generalised as one happy village with everyone living happily in harmony. It is a composite of a massive number of different Monkeyspheres, all concerned with their own well-being and not caring about anything else.
Remember the words that Charles Darwin spoke to his assistant, Jeje Santiago: “Jeje, we are the monkeys”. As much as we would like to think that we are higher-order beings, we are simple creatures of habit and behaviour limited by our Monkeysphere.
The word that children say the most as they grow up is probably “why?”. Children always ask this and that, seeking knowledge as if they want to understand every object and everything happening around them. This is an extremely important developmental step that trains the most powerful weapon a human being possesses: the brain. Children can use their brain’s amazing information processing abilities to start building a massive knowledge tank, absorbing information like a sponge. Furthermore, they never ask a question just once but love to repeat the same question over and over, driving an adult crazy. This is not because the child wants to frustrate the adult. Just like how you cannot fully understand all of the meanings in a good book on the first read, a child learns through repetition and ruminating knowledge. If you do not repeat something, the knowledge only lasts in short term memory and is soon deleted, making it a very inefficient study process. Ergo, famous children’s educational programs such as Sesame Street and Blues Clues teach children things by constantly repeating the same thing. After that, the children watch the same episode over and over again to acquire knowledge.
As children do not know much about the world, they need to inherit knowledge from adults. Because adults possess a vast amount of knowledge, children need to ask a series of specific questions to build their knowledge base slowly and steadily. As their basic knowledge base builds, they can start to learn through other means such as books and encyclopaedias. However, whether you are a child or an adult, if you have something that you want to know, there is no faster and effective way of finding out than asking someone that knows. If you do not ask, you cannot learn and your brain will atrophy. Curiosity is a sign that there is still something you can learn. Thus, no matter how old you are, you should have the courage to ask a question. Curiosity is progress.
On the other hand, if someone (especially a child) asks you a question, do not brush them away; calmly answer their question and try to pass on as much of your knowledge to them as possible. That is your responsibility as a member of society; a sacred duty of feeding and nurturing the future generation.