Heart Is to Art Mind Is to Science Soul
Mens Sana Monogr. 2011 Jan-Dec; nine(one): 129–149.
Understanding Brain, Mind and Soul: Contributions from Neurology and Neurosurgery
Sunil K. Pandya
* M.Due south. Neurosurgeon, Jaslok Infirmary & Enquiry Centre, Dr. K. V. Deshmukh Marg, Mumbai, 400026.
Received 2009 Dec i; Revised 2010 Dec 16; Accepted 2010 Dec 17.
Abstract
Treatment of diseases of the brain past drugs or surgery necessitates an understanding of its structure and functions. The philosophical neurosurgeon soon encounters difficulties when localising the abstruse concepts of mind and soul within the tangible 1300-gram organ containing 100 billion neurones. Hippocrates had focused attention on the brain as the seat of the mind. The tabula rasa postulated by Aristotle cannot exist localised to a particular role of the encephalon with the conviction that we can localise spoken speech communication to Broca's expanse or the movement of limbs to the contralateral motor cortex. Galen's localisation of imagination, reasoning, judgement and memory in the cerebral ventricles complanate once information technology was evident that the functional units–neurones–lay in the parenchyma of the brain. Experiences gained from accidental injuries (Phineas Gage) or temporal lobe resection (William Beecher Scoville); studies on how we see and hear and more than recent data from functional magnetic resonance studies have made us aware of the extensive network of neurones in the cerebral hemispheres that subserve the functions of the mind. The soul or atman, credited with the ability to enliven the body, was located by ancient anatomists and philosophers in the lungs or heart, in the pineal gland (Descartes), and generally in the brain. When the deeper parts of the brain came within the reach of neurosurgeons, the brainstem proved exceptionally delicate and vulnerable. The concept of brain death after irreversible harm to it has made all of united states of america aware of 'the cocktail of brain soup and spark' in the brainstem so necessary for life. If there be a soul in each of us, surely, it is enshrined hither.
Keywords: Brain, Brainstem, Heed, Soul, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Philosophy
Introduction
Millennia agone, we embarked on a quest for knowledge of the wonderful structure of man. The organ that puzzled before observers most was the human brain. Despite our many explorations, nosotros remained in awe of this organ.
The evolution of our cognition of the construction and function of the brain has been handsomely documented in volumes ranging from McHenry's revision of Dr. Fielding Garrison's work in 1969 (McHenry, 1969) to the more recent History of Neurology, edited past Finger and colleagues (Finger et al., 2009). Dr. Susan Greenfield'south volume (Greenfield, 1997), intended for the lay person, embodies much useful information. Nosotros are at present enlightened of nervus cells, their connections and their modes of communication amid themselves and with a variety of other structures.
Injury to, and disease in, the brain ofttimes provides crucial insights on the function of its unlike parts. A dramatic example is the injury suffered by American railway foreman, Phineas Gage in 1848. Before his accident, Gage was liked by friends and acquaintances who considered him to exist honest, trustworthy, difficult working and dependable. A freak accident caused a metal tamping rod to enter under his left zygomatic arch and get out through the height of his skull (Barker, 1995).
The blow left him with piddling if any intellectual impairment simply afterward the accident, Gage became vulgar, irresponsible, capricious and prone to profanity. The company that had previously regarded him equally the virtually efficient and capable of their employees dismissed him from his job. His alter in character after the accident made this the alphabetize case for personality change due to frontal lobe damage. Subsequent studies (Come across, for case, Blumer and Benson, 1975) take shown a wide spectrum of abnormal behaviour (compulsive and explosive actions, lack of inhibition, unwarranted maniacal suspicion and alcohol and drug abuse) afterward injuries to and disease in the frontal or temporal lobes and their pathways to the deeper regions of the brain.
Like abnormalities besides follow chemic derangements in the brain.
Modern marvels such equally computerised tomography and magnetic resonance imaging of the nervous arrangement have provided meaning additional data. Functional magnetic resonance imaging now allows u.s.a. to further localise function inside the construction of the brain and correlate abnormalities of its structure and part.
Even then, two entities remain enigmatic: the heed and the soul. Where are they located? Do they lie inside the brain? Since neurophysicians treat patients with a wide variety of abnormalities of the brain and neurosurgeons lay bare the brain and often work in its interior, can they provide insights?
Neurologists and neurosurgeons rank high amongst scientists participating in philosophical debates about what might extend beyond the physical world. They are constantly dealing with patients who have fallen into the deep hole of unconsciousness. In their attempts at restoring normalcy to bodies and minds, they also grapple with life and death. Inevitably, they ponder spirituality and the dominion of the soul.
The Mind
We are embodied spirits and inspirited bodies, (or, if you will, embodied minds and minded bodies). (Anonymous, 2003)
Mind has been variously defined as that which is responsible for 1's thoughts and feelings, the seat of the faculty of reason or the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, volition and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is oft used to refer, by implication, to the idea processes of reason. [See, for example, definitions of mind in a) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind, and b) http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=enanddefl=enandq=ascertain:mindandsa=Xandei=l973TOviFYusrAf-hfzvDwandved=0CBYQkAE]
Prioreschi (1996) concluded that by the end of the vth century B.C., the question of whether the heart or the brain was the seat of intelligence remained unresolved in Western medicine. This changed with the works of Hippocrates (ca. 460 BC–ca. 370 BC), 'a figure of heroic proportions even if dimmed past the mist of time.' Hippocrates' oftentimes-quoted statements show a articulate understanding of the role of the brain vis-Ã -vis the mind:
'Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the encephalon alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, besides as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. Through it, in particular, we call back, see, hear and distinguish the ugly from the cute, the bad from the good, the pleasant from the unpleasant… I concur that the brain is the nigh powerful organ of the human torso… wherefore I assert that the brain is the interpreter of consciousness…' (Hippocrates: On the sacred disease. Quoted past Prioreschi [1996])
In talking of the brain as an organ, Hippocrates very clearly refers to those functions which we ordinarily include in our understanding of the 'mind.' He talks of emotive mental functions like pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, sorrows, pains, griefs and tears; cognitive mental functions like thinking and seeing; artful mental functions like distinguishing the ugly from the beautiful, the pleasant from the unpleasant and ethical functions like distinguishing the bad from the good–all these every bit attributes of the encephalon, and brain alone. By which he actually makes a clear connection between mental functions as nosotros empathise them ('heed') and the structure that produces it (brain).
In his book De anima (On the soul), Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC) felt that man is born with a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which experiences and perceptions are written to form the mind. Although tabula rasa is a concept traditionally attributed to Locke, Aristotle offset referred to it. See Part 4 of Aristotle's 'On the soul', the 2d-final paragraph.(Aristotle, 2009):
'Have not nosotros already disposed of the difficulty about interaction involving a common element, when we said that mind is in a sense potentially whatever is thinkable, though actually it is nothing until it has thought? What it thinks must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writing tablet on which as all the same nothing really stands written: this is exactly what happens with mind.'
Over the centuries that followed Avicenna (981–1037), Ibn Tufail (c. 1105–1185), Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and others commented on this theme. (See Trimble, 2007.)
Jean Fernel (1496–1558) treated mind and brain together in his Physiology. He felt that the brain refined the animal spirits. Purged of all corporeal dross, they became concepts, finally even universal concepts and the ideas of the moral values (Sherrington, 1946).
The British neurophysiologist Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1952), 'the scientist'south philosopher' (Breathnach, 2004), pondered the location and functions of the mind. He acknowledged the problems encountered in attempting to restrict the listen to the brain. 'It seems ludicrous to range such a paucity of nerve-process aslope the manifold diversity of mind.' He was well aware that '…our mental experience is not open to observation through any sense organ …' He concluded that 'The encephalon is the provider of mind… The mental activeness lies cached in the brain … in that role most deeply recessed from the outside world, that is furthest from input and output…' (Zeman, 2007).
Pinker (2003) has recently discussed the role of nature vs nurture in the development of the mind. Dismissing the concept of the bare slate, Pinker wrote: 'The mind cannot be a blank slate, because bare slates don't exercise anything… The inscriptions (on such a slate) volition sit there forever unless something notices patterns in them, combines them with patterns learned at other times, uses the combinations to scribble new thoughts onto the slate, and reads the results to guide behaviour toward goals. Locke recognized this problem and alluded to something called the understanding, which looked at the inscriptions on the white paper and carried out the recognizing, reflecting, and associating.' He concluded that 'The heed is a complex system equanimous of many interacting parts.'
Neurologists and neurosurgeons run into patients with injured or diseased brains. Neurosurgeons attempt restoration of the internal structure of the encephalon to normalcy or right disordered function in select areas past such modes as deep brain stimulation or ablation. Some operations are performed on patients who are awake. Observations on patients provided clues to the functions of the mind in relation to the construction of the brain. 'When a surgeon sends an electrical electric current into the brain, the person can have a vivid, lifelike experience. When chemicals seep into the brain, they can alter the person's perception, mood, personality, and reasoning. When a patch of encephalon tissue dies, a part of the mind tin can disappear: a neurological patient may lose the ability to name tools, recognize faces, conceptualize the consequence of his behaviour, empathize with others, or continue in mind a region of space or of his own body… Every emotion and thought gives off physical signals, and the new technologies for detecting them are and so accurate that they tin can literally read a person's mind and tell a cognitive neuroscientist whether the person is imagining a face or a place. Neuroscientists tin can knock a cistron out of a mouse (a gene also constitute in humans) and forbid the mouse from learning, or insert extra copies and make the mouse learn faster. Under the microscope, encephalon tissue shows a staggering complexity—a hundred billion neurons connected by a hundred trillion synapses—that is commensurate with the staggering complication of man thought and experience… And when the brain dies, the person goes out of beingness' (Pinker, 2003).
Studies on patients who accept suffered brain injury (such as Phineas Cuff) have also provided interesting clues on the mind in relationship to the brain. We at present know that damaged frontal lobes can no longer exert inhibitory influences on the limbic system with consequent aggressive acts.
The relation between the corporeality of grey matter in the frontal lobes and intelligence; the junior parietal lobules and spatial reasoning and intuitions on numbers (equally in Albert Einstein) and the third interstitial nucleus in the inductive thalamus and homosexuality (Pinker, 2003) are a few more examples of specific areas of the brain linked to characteristics attributed to the heed. Paul Broca showed that damage to the expanse (subsequently named after him) in the dominant cerebrum results in an inability to talk. Subsequent studies showed several other areas within the cerebrum that govern other aspects of speech.
Bilateral frontal lobotomy and subsequent more sophisticated variants such equally stereotaxic amygdalotomies or cingulotomies reduce an aggressive, maniacal individual to docility (Heller et al., 2006).
Dr. Wilder Penfield (1891–1976), Canadian neurosurgeon, was known for his groundbreaking work on epilepsy. He operated on patients with intractable epilepsy using local anaesthesia, ensuring that they remained awake throughout the operation. He stimulated areas of the brain surface in these patients in order to demarcate the part producing epilepsy. In many patients, electrical stimulation of certain areas of the brain triggered vivid memories of past events. One patient, while on an operating table in Montreal, Canada, remembered laughing with cousins on a farm in South Africa.
Penfield concluded: 'This is a startling discovery. Information technology brings psychical phenomena into the field of physiology. Information technology should have profound significance also in the field of psychology provided we tin can translate the facts properly. We have to explicate how it comes about that when an electrode (producing, for example, lx electrical impulses per 2nd) is applied steadily to the cortex it can cause a ganglionic circuitous to recreate a steadily unfolding phenomenon, a psychical phenomenon.
'It is obvious that there is, beneath the electrode, a recording mechanism for memories of events. But the mechanism seems to have recorded much more than the simple event. When activated, it may reproduce the emotions which attended the original experience. What is more than, the ganglionic mechanism continues to add to itself the memory of emotions which attend the recollection of the outcome and the substance of the man's reasoning regarding the significance of the event…
'The neuronal machinery which nosotros accept stumbled upon in the form of neurosurgical operations, and which is probably duplicated in homologous areas of the two hemispheres, seems to have for its function the reproduction of (1) a remembered event or (2) thinking related to that result, and (3) the emotion it evoked' (Horowitz, 1997).
On 1 September 1953, Dr. William Beecher Scoville performed bilateral mesial temporal lobe resections on a patient known every bit H.M. in the medical records. The inadvertent astringent damage to the important limbic structures resulted in permanent loss of retentiveness in this patient (Scoville, 1957). H. M. knew his proper name. He knew that his father's family came from Thibodaux, LA, and his mother was from Republic of ireland, and he knew almost the 1929 stock market crash and World State of war II and life in the 1940s. Simply, he could call up about nix after that. Dr. Brenda Milner, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute and McGill University studied H. Grand. nearly up to his death in 2008 and noted: 'He was a very gracious homo, very patient, e'er willing to try these tasks I would give him and yet every fourth dimension I walked in the room, it was similar we'd never met' (Carey, 2008).
Impairment to discrete areas within the encephalon can thus produce a variety of disorders of the mind. 'Taken together, the data from neurology suggests that despite our encephalon's ability to organize our experience of ourselves and the globe into a seamless unity, we are, in fact, made upwards of several parts, the loss of any of which can have dramatic furnishings on the whole' (Craig, 2005).
In his Nobel Lecture, Sperry described the implications on concepts of the mind of the observations made after splitting the corpus callosum (Sperry, 1981). Sperry'southward experiments, some conducted with R. E. Myers, showed that the cat with divided corpus callosum now had two minds either of which was capable of learning on its ain, and of responding intelligently to changes in the globe around it on its own. Subsequent experiments with rats, monkeys and later with human epileptic patients gave similar results. 'Using John Doe as an example written report, doctors examined John Doe Left and John Doe Right. Psychological tests showed that both John Does had remarkably similar personalities. Except for language ability, they were near every bit much alike every bit identical twins. Their attitudes and opinions seemed to be the same; their perceptions of the world were the same; and they woke up and went to sleep at almost the same times. There were differences yet. John Doe Left could express himself in linguistic communication and was somewhat more logical and better at [planning…]. John Doe Right tended to be somewhat more aggressive, impulsive, emotional - and frequently expressed frustration with what was going on.' (McConnell, 1982). Such experiments led Sperry, Ornstein and others to conclude that each of the separated hemispheres has its own private sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories, in short, that they constitute ii divide minds, two separate spheres of consciousness (Gross, 2005). 'Splitting the brain amounts to nothing less than splitting the self' (Craig, 2005).
In add-on to structure, nosotros must consider the chemical processes within the encephalon. The effects of caffeine, alcohol, marihuana and opium on the brain and heed are common knowledge. Chemicals within the nervous organization, such every bit adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, the endorphins and encephalins, enable and modify the many functions of encephalon and mind and body nosotros accept for granted. Craig (2005) quotes the statement made by Steven Johnson: 'Our personalities, the entities that make us both unique and predictable equally individuals, emerge out of these patterns of chemical release.'
Carter (1998) described modern techniques for mapping the brain and mind. 'It is now possible to locate and find the mechanics of rage, violence and misperception and fifty-fifty to observe the concrete signs of complex qualities of the listen like kindness, sense of humour, heartlessness, gregariousness, altruism, mother-love and self-awareness.' O'Connor et al. (2008) studied the nucleus accumbens, the region about commonly associated with social attachment, in persons grieving from the death of a loved ane [Figure one].
'Nucleus accumbens activity in response to grief-related vs neutral words that was significantly greater in the complicated grief grouping compared to the non-complicated grief group' (O'Connor et al., 2008).
Sounding a cautious annotation, Carter (1998) pointed out that whilst the optimist might wish for a complete understanding of human nature and experience from such studies, others may insist that a map of the brain can tell us no more nigh the heed than a terrestrial globe speak of Heaven and Hell.
To sum up, whilst the brain is 'a physical machinery, an system of thing that converts inputs to outputs in item ways' (Pinker, 2003) the style in which its hundred billion neurones are deployed, the infinite variations in their connections that issue in very circuitous neural networks, the multitude of chemical and electrical reactions within it and the consequent near unimaginable complexity of construction and role enable it to contain the mind but as it does the sources of all the other activities attributed to sentient life.
Where is the Mind Located?
The brain is the organ of the mind simply every bit the lungs are the organs for respiration.
How does the Heed Function?
Krishnamoorthy (2009) uses an illustration based on computers to explain the workings of the mind: 'The mind… is a virtual entity, i that reflects the workings of the neural networks, chemical and hormonal systems in our encephalon.' The mind cannot be localised to detail areas within the brain, though the entire cerebral cortex and deep grey affair form important components. Consciousness, perception, behaviour, intelligence, language, motivation, bulldoze, the urge to excel and reasoning of the most complex kind are the product of the all-encompassing and complex linkages between the unlike parts of the brain. Likewise, abnormalities attributed to the mind, such as the spectrum of disorders dealt with by psychiatrists and psychologists, are consequences of widespread abnormalities, often in the chemical processes within different parts of the brain.
Two peachy British masters of neurology summed it up best.
John Hughlings Jackson (four March, 1835–7 October, 1911) addressed anatomy.
'Cocky, however, is dependent on the development of anatomically new structures. Jackson suggested that the evolutionary development of the prefrontal cortex is necessary to the emergence of self. In this sense it could be chosen the organ of heed. Notwithstanding, this is non to say that self resides in the prefrontal cortex. Rather, the new structure allows a more than circuitous coordination of what is anatomically a sensori-motor motorcar.
'In summary, Jackson conceived of the primal nervous system as having a hierarchical organization that reflects evolutionary history. He used the terms lowest, centre, and highest centres…equally proper names…to point evolutionary levels. Ascending levels show increasing integration and coordination of sensorimotor representations. The highest-level coordination, which allows the greatest voluntary control, depends on prefrontal activity. Self is a manifestation of this highest level of consciousness, which involves doubling. This doubling is established past the reflective chapters that enables 1 to become aware of individual experience in a way that gives a sense of an inner life.' (Meares, 1999).
Sherrington (1961) addressed function and emphasised the limitations of our ways for analysis:
'Integration has been traced at work in two great, and in some respects counterpart, systems of the organism. The physico-chemic produced a unified machine… the psychical, creates from psychical information a percipient, thinking and endeavouring mental individual… they are largely complemental and life brings them co-operatively together at innumerable points… The formal dichotomy of the individual … which our description practiced for the sake of analysis, results in artifacts such equally are not in nature… the ii schematic members of the puppet pair… require to be integrated… This integration can be thought of as the last and final integration.'
The Soul
Introduction
The Bhagavad-Gita describes some of the qualities of the soul:
I say to thee weapons reach not the Life;
Flame burns it not, waters cannot o'erwhelm,
Nor dry winds wither it. Bulletproof,
Unentered, unassailed, unharmed, untouched,
Immortal, all-arriving, stable, sure,
Invisible, ineffable, by word
And idea uncompassed, ever all itself,
Thus is the Soul alleged!
(Arnold, 1900)
***
Socrates – Now exercise you think one can acquire any particular noesis of the nature of the soul without knowing the nature of the whole human being?
Phaedrus – If Hippocrates the Asclepiad is to be trusted, i cannot know the nature of the trunk, either, except in that fashion. (Plato's Phaedrus quoted past Prioreschi, 1996).
***
I wrote an essay called The Verbal Location of the Soul (Selzer, 1976). I was being mischievous. I asked, 'Is it nether the kneecap or in a fold of the baby'south neck? Where is it?' (Selzer Interview, 2005).
***
The search for the location of the human soul probably dates back to the awareness of such an entity. Termed atman by aboriginal Indian philosophers, psyche by the Greek and anima by the Romans, it has been considered resident within, but singled-out from the human body. Many consider it immortal, postulating decease to exist the consequence of the departure of the soul from the trunk.
We use the term soul to denote essence as in the phrase 'prayer is the very soul of religion.' Information technology is not surprising that we keep to enquire into the essence of man.
Several questions arise when because the soul. Here are some examples. When does the soul enter the homo torso, every bit the sperm enters the egg or as they fuse into one cell or at a later on stage? Does the soul influence the body, mind and intellect? Is the soul identical with what we term conscience? Since it animates the live person, does it govern functions of the trunk beyond the command of the mind, functions termed 'vital' past biologists? What happens to the soul during dreams, anaesthesia, trance-like states? What happens to information technology after the soul leaves the torso? Where and how are caused characters stored in the nebulous soul? Where, in the body, does the soul reside?
Is there any indicate in searching for the location of the soul?
The answer must be in a resounding affirmative. The efforts over millennia to decide the nature and discover the location of the soul have resulted in a better understanding of the wonderful structure and function of man and his place in the cosmos.
In making this search and noting our findings, nosotros must never lose sight of the cautionary annotation sounded by Leonardo da Vinci circa in 1487: 'With what words O writer tin y'all with a like perfection draw the whole arrangement of that of which the design is here?' (MacCurdy 1956).
The search and some conclusions
The physician-turned-author, Anton Chekhov (29 Jan, 1860–15 July, 1904) wrote to his friend Suvorin (vii May, 1889): 'I retrieve that when dissecting a corpse, the most inveterate spiritualist will be bound to ask himself, Where is the soul here? And if i knows how smashing is the likeness betwixt bodily and mental diseases, and that both are treated by the same remedies, one cannot help refusing to carve up the soul from the body.' (Meet http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/chekhov/anton/c51lt/chapter24.html accessed on 6 December, 2010). Chekhov echoes the question asked past and so many over the centuries.
Hippocrates concluded that madness originated in the brain. Plato (in Timaeus) felt that folly was a affliction of the soul. Philistion subclassified folly into madness and ignorance (Harris, 1973).
Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BC) had described the soul as consisting of three parts–intelligence, reason and passion. The seat of the soul extended from the heart to the brain, passion existence located in the heart and reason and intelligence in the brain (Prioreschi, 1996).
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519; see Figure two), with his uncanny genius, placed the soul to a higher place the optic chiasm in the region of the anterior-inferior 3rd ventricle (Santoro et al., 2009).
Leonardo depicted the location of the soul at the betoken where a series of intersecting lines meet (Santoro, 2009).
His summing up will proceed to evoke admiration:
Though human ingenuity by various inventions with unlike instruments yields the same terminate, it will never devise an invention either more beautiful… than does Nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing superfluous and she… puts in that location the soul, the composer of the trunk, that is the soul of the female parent which first composes in the womb the shape of human and in due time awakens the soul which is to be its inhabitant (Del Maestro, 1998).
René Descartes (1596–1650; see Figure 3) distinguished between the body and the soul, simply equated the listen and soul:
Portrait of Rene Descartes by Frans Hals, 1649.
There is a great difference betwixt mind and body, inasmuch as torso is by nature ever divisible, and the listen is entirely indivisible. …When I consider the mind, that is to say, myself inasmuch as I am merely a thinking being, I cannot distinguish in myself any parts, simply apprehend myself to exist clearly i and entire; and though the whole mind seems to exist united to the whole torso, nonetheless if a foot, or an arm, or some other part, is separated from the trunk, I am aware that zip has been taken from my mind. And the faculties of willing, feeling, conceiving, etc. cannot be properly speaking said to be its parts, for it is one and the aforementioned listen which employs itself in willing and in feeling and understanding. But it is quite otherwise with corporeal or extended objects, for at that place is non one of them imaginable by me which my mind cannot easily divide into parts. …This would be sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the trunk, if I had non already been apprised of information technology on other grounds.
Descartes localised the soul in the pineal gland as information technology lay deep within the brain, in the midline and was unpaired [encounter Figure iv]. It is of interest that in neurosurgery journals, Descartes' views are quoted with respect during discussions on surgery on the region of the pineal gland (Apuzzo, 1996).
The pineal gland co-ordinate to Descartes. This image from the 1664 edition of the Treatise of man illustrates Descartes' view that the pineal gland (H) is suspended in the middle of the ventricles (Descartes 1664, p 63). (Run across http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland).
Lancisi (1654–1720) agreed that the soul must lie deep within the brain, in the midline and in an unpaired structure, but favoured the corpus callosum, especially the Nervali longitudinales ab anterioribus ad posteriora excurrentes, which are still chosen the medial longitudinal striae of corpus callosum, or nerves of Lancisi. He felt that the vital spirits could catamenia in the fibres of the medial striae. These formed a pathway for the stream of the soul (or perhaps consciousness) between the anterior part of the corpus callosum and the anterior columns of the fornix and the posterior office of the corpus callosum and the thalami, a sort of connexion between the seat of the soul and the peripheral organs, betwixt the soul and the body (Di Ieva, 2007).
Thomas Willis (1621-1675) wrote Cerebri Anatome while being a Professor of Natural Philosophy in Oxford, where he used the anatomy of the brain every bit a tool to investigate the nature of the soul. In his dedication to Cerebri Anatome, he stated that the study of beefcake could 'unlock the secret places of Man'south Heed and [to] look into the living and breathing Chapel of the Deity' (O'Connor, 2003). He conceived of 'a middle function of the brain, a kind of interior chamber of the soul… in the innermost office of which images or representations of all sensible things, sent in through the passages of the nerves… are revealed upon the corpus callosum… and so induce perception…' Willis had considered equally active powers of the soul 'local motion, memory, phantasy and appetite' which succeeded to 'the passions' (Clarke and O'Malley, 1996).
Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) placed the soul in the medulla oblongata (Trimble, 2007; p27).
Bloom (2004) commented on the refutation of the dualist view differentiating the torso and the soul:
… People oft appeal to science to respond the question When does life begin? in the hopes that an objective answer will settle the abortion debate once and for all. Simply the question is not actually about life in any biological sense. It is instead asking about the magical moment at which a cluster of cells becomes more than a mere concrete thing. It is a question almost the soul… It is not a question that scientists could ever reply. The qualities of mental life that we acquaintance with souls are purely corporeal; they sally from biochemical processes in the brain…
Santoro et al. (2009) recently reviewed the postulates regarding the nature and location of the soul in the human body. They ended that there be two ascendant and, in many respects, incompatible concepts of the soul: one that understands the soul to be spiritual and immortal, and another that understands the soul to be material and mortal. In both cases, the soul has been described equally beingness located in a specific organ or anatomic structure or as pervading the entire body, and, in some instances, across mankind and even beyond the creation.
Rationalists are doubtful. On the death of Harvard'south distinguished psychologist, Professor William James (1842–1910), Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was asked about the human soul. 'Soul? Soul? What exercise you hateful by soul? The brain?' 'Well, for the sake of statement, call it the brain or what is in the encephalon. Is there not something immortal of or in the human encephalon – the homo mind?' asked Marshall. 'Absolutely no.' said Edison with emphasis:
'At that place is no more than reason to believe that any human brain will be immortal than in that location is to call back that one of my phonographic cylinders volition exist immortal… No one thinks of claiming immortality for the cylinders… Then why claim it for the brain machinery or the power that drives it? Because we do not know what that ability is, shall we call it immortal? Equally well telephone call electricity immortal because we exercise non know what it is… After death the force or power undoubtedly endures, only information technology endures in this world, not in the side by side. And so with the affair we call life, or the soul – mere speculative terms for a textile matter which under given conditions drives this style or that. Information technology too endures in this world, not the other. Because we are as yet unable to understand it, we call it immortal. It is the ignorant, lazy man'southward refuge' (Marshall, 1910).
What were William James' views? He titled Lecture Three of the published version of his Gifford Lectures 'The reality of the unseen' and discussed behavior in objects that nosotros cannot run into. He quoted Immanuel Kant'south doctrine about such objects of belief as God and the soul every bit 'properly not objects of cognition at all.' James referred to the strange phenomenon of a mind believing with all its forcefulness in the real presence of a ready of things of no one of which it tin can form any notion whatsoever (James, 1902).
In 1907, Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts, decided to weigh the soul by weighing a homo in the act of death.
'My first subject was a man dying of tuberculosis. It seemed to me best to select a patient dying with a affliction that produces great exhaustion, the expiry occurring with fiddling or no muscular motion, because in such a instance the beam could exist kept more than perfectly at residual and any loss occurring readily noted.' 'The patient was under observation for three hours and forty minutes before decease, lying on a bed arranged on a light framework built upon very delicately balanced platform beam scales. The patient's comfort was looked subsequently in every way, although he was practically moribund when placed upon the bed. He lost weight slowly at the rate of one ounce per hour due to evaporation of wet in respiration and evaporation of sweat. During all iii hours and forty minutes I kept the beam stop slightly above remainder near the upper limiting bar in guild to make the test more decisive if information technology should come. At the terminate of three hours and xl minutes he expired and all of a sudden coincident with death the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce.' He plant the soul in half dozen patients to weigh betwixt 0.5 to 1.5 ounces (MacDougall, 1907).
In 1910, Dr. Max Baff of Clark University, Worcester, United states of america narrated to the correspondent of The New York Times his views on the use of x-ray cinematography to study the soul.
'Fifty-fifty the activities of the and so-chosen soul may be projected on the screen… Photographs might be taken at the moment of decease and immediately after. Information technology is the conventionalities that when the heart stops beating the soul leaves the trunk. Something may be learned of the soul past observing the changes in its habitat, the marrow-similar brain, at the moment when life ceases. I myself do non believe the soul to be a thing without the encephalon though I am neither an atheist nor an doubter. However much people may believe that the soul is a separate affair, it must exist borne in mind that its activities, idea and action, are confined within the limitations of the brain' (Baff, 1910).
I am not aware of whatever success from Dr. Baff'southward endeavours.
Otto Rank (2002) has summed the state of affairs regards the soul well. He felt that belief in the soul grew out of the need to reassure ourselves of immortality, despite our knowledge of the immutable biological fact of death:
'The standoff (betwixt our need and the fact of death) created a spark in our private and social consciousness that through history has become both consolation and inspiration: the immortal soul… The immortal soul, whether fact or fiction, gives comfort.'
V. Southward. Ramachandran, encephalon scientist at the Academy of California, San Diego, is less tactful. He said in an interview that there might be soul in the sense of 'the universal spirit of the cosmos,' but the soul as it is usually spoken of, 'an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brains and that simply evolved in humans—all that is consummate nonsense.' Belief in that kind of soul 'is basically superstition,' he said (Dean, 2007).
For scientists who are people of faith, like Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown Academy, asking about the science of the soul is pointless, in a manner, considering it is not a subject science can address. 'It is not physical and investigateable in the world of science,' he said. Dr. Miller said he spoke often at higher campuses and elsewhere and was regularly asked, 'What do you say as a scientist well-nigh the soul?' His answer, he said, is ever the same: 'As a scientist, I have nothing to say most the soul. Information technology'southward not a scientific idea' (Dean, 2007).
If there exist a soul, where is it located? Views of neuroscientists
If we accept the existence of the soul and its localisation in the brain, we must focus on the brainstem. Christopher Pallis (1983), discussing the definition of whole-brain death, provided a modern concept of the soul. 'The loss of the capacity for consciousness and of the chapters to exhale (after brain death) relate to functional disturbances at the contrary ends of the brain stem while the erstwhile is also a meaningful alternative to "the departure of the soul".'
Greenfield's (1997) clarification is relevant. The soul, like the seat of consciousness (in its neurological sense) lies in 'the cocktail of encephalon soup and spark' within the deep cerebrum and brainstem, whence dopamine, noradrenaline, acetylcholine are released 'in a fountain-like system on to the more sophisticated regions of the (cerebral) cortex and immediate subcortical structures' to produce a series of electrical and chemical events.
Neurosurgeons operating within the brainstem are known to tell their postgraduate students: 'I need not emphasise the need for the greatest accurateness and delicacy when operating hither – we are now in the abode of the soul.' (This is the gist of what I have heard when watching some very senior neurosurgeons perform frail operations deep within the brain.)
We must confess that the existence of the soul remains unproven by tests 'in the acid baths of experiment and logic.' Nor has it 'enjoyed repeated vindication' (Wilson, 1998). Despite all that has been written on the soul, it is difficult to fault Musil'southward observation published in 1990: '(There is) an abiding miscommunication between the intellect and the soul. We do not have too much intellect and too little soul, but likewise little intellect in matters of soul.'
Perhaps, nosotros shall eventually come to conclusions similar to those reached by Sir Thomas Browne (nineteen Oct, 1605–nineteen October, 1682) in his almost famous work, the Religio Medici:
'Amongst all those rare discoveries and curious pieces I observe in the Fabrick of Man, in that location is no Organ or Instrument for the rational Soul; for in the brain at that place is not anything of moment more than than I tin discover in the crany of a fauna, and this is an argument of the inorganity of the Soul. Thus nosotros are men, and we know not how; there is something in us that tin can exist without us, and will be after us; though it is strange that it hath no history what it was before the states, nor cannot tell how it entered in us' (Browne, 1635/2009).
We remain 'children of Tantalus, frustrated by the failure to grasp that which seems inside reach…' (Wilson, 1998).
Of course, if you lot have a hyperactive funny bone, yous could paraphrase Woody Allen, who, as so often, has the ultimate comic word on the subject: 'Y'all cannot prove the non-existence of the soul; you just have to take it on religion.' (http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/ghost-stories/?apage=3)
Terminal Remarks [run across also Effigy 5]
The mind and the soul remain fascinating enigmas. Whilst we take fabricated some progress in our agreement of these two hazy constituents of life, much is as yet poorly understood.
Religious scholars inquire us scientists to desist from any try at studying the soul. Hindu philosophers tell u.s. that the soul of a person who has attained moksha (liberation from the cycle of re-nativity) unites with God. The soul has frequently been termed the God within each of us.
The spirit of enquiry that is the essence of science must stimulate u.s.a. to continue our efforts at understanding it improve. If, in doing so, we sympathise God better, this tin only be to our advantage.
Take domicile message
The report of the encephalon, heed and soul has engaged some of the finest intellects of yesteryears. It remains an ennobling and inspiring pursuit, worthy of all those who are dedicated votaries of science.
Questions That This Paper Raises
-
What are the precise definitions of mind and soul?
-
Practice yous agree with the writer'southward conclusions on the mind in the encephalon?
-
Which of the many modern tools used in the report of the brain should we use to further our agreement of the heed?
-
Most religious texts treat the soul equally 'something' that leaves the human being trunk at death. What is this 'something' and if information technology leaves the homo body, where is it located during life?
-
Philosophers have argued that the soul is not acquiescent to scientific scrutiny. Accepting this indicate of view, would mean an terminate to whatever serious exploration of this hitherto nebulous entity. What studies can we undertake to advance our cognition and understanding?
About the Author
Sunil Pandya is a neurosurgeon and thinker on medical ethics. He joined the Grant Medical Higher in 1957 and trained at the Sir JJ Grouping of Hospitals, Mumbai. He obtained the MBBS (1961), MS (1965) and Fellowship of the National Academy of Medical Sciences. He underwent further training under Professor Valentine Logue at the Establish of Neurology, London. He joined Dr Homi Dastur at the Department of Neurosurgery, Seth G.Due south. Medical College and KEM Infirmary in 1967 as a Pool Officer and was appointed to the staff as Asst Neurosurgeon in 1968. In 1975, on Prof Dastur's retirement, he was appointed Prof of Neurosurgery. He retired on superannuating in 1998, and has since worked at the Jaslok Infirmary and Research Center, Bombay. He is Editor Emeritus, Indian Periodical of Medical Ideals; Periodical Ombudsman, Journal of Postal service Graduate Medicine; on the Editorial Board, National Medical Journal of Bharat; and on the International Editorial Informational Lath of the Mens Monographs.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Dr. Shakuntala and Dr. Ajai Singh for stimulating me to study this field of study in greater particular. The adequate fourth dimension provided by them between the invitation to participate in that very stimulating meeting and the consequence itself enabled me to consult books and journals and works available on the internet and put together this essay.
Dr. Ajai Singh has also kindly made important suggestions for the comeback of my essay and helped in its writing and editing.
Footnotes
Conflict of interest
None declared.
Proclamation
This piece of work was offset read as a newspaper in an International Seminar on Heed, Brain and Consciousness at Thane, Maharashtra, India, 14 to fifteen January, 2010. An earlier version was also published in the Proceedings of the Seminar.
This paper is my original writing, and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere.
Commendation: Pandya SK., (2011), Understanding Brain, Listen and Soul: Contributions from Neurology and Neurosurgery. In: Encephalon, Mind and Consciousness: An International, Interdisciplinary Perspective (A.R. Singh and S.A. Singh eds.), MSM, >9(1), p129-149..
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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115284/
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