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07:26

 



The Neuroscience of ISIS


The gap is widening between visions of a brilliant future and one of deliberate Apocalyptic destruction.
 
This is the first of a series of columns for The Daily Beast about the intersection of medical technologies on the cusp of changing our lives, and how they fit into the real world. Join me every other Saturday.

Call it a tale of two brains: the extreme dichotomy of human behavior that runs the age-old gamut between evil and good.

Recently this duality has manifested in the rise of the so-called Islamic State (also the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) set against an accelerating pace of technological breakthroughs. One worldview wants to burn people alive, the other to regenerate damaged cells, engineer advanced artificial limbs, and send tourists to the moon.
Put another way, it’s Homeland versus TED.

For those optimistic about the future this is an exciting time to be alive. They believe we are on the cusp of an era when millions and possibly billions of people will be connected, vital, well fed, entertained, and so healthy that some may live extra decades in youthful bodies free of many diseases that now afflict us.

Contrast that with the likes of ISIS and Boko Haram, the Charlie Hebdo gunmen in Paris, and the Tzarnaez brothers in Boston. They remind us with a jolt that not everyone sees a bright tomorrow. Not for themselves. Nor for a society that they want to first return to the brutality of the seventh century and then annihilate in a sea of blood. For the Islamic State this is literal, as Graeme Wood reported in his recent Atlantic cover story, “What ISIS Really Wants.”

According to Wood, the tens of thousands of young men (and a few women) flocking to Syria and Mesopotamia yearn to leap back to a time when torture, rape, beheadings, and other brutalities were commonly deployed by Muslims, Christians, and others under the guise of religious purity. Led by self-proclaimed “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the followers of ISIS eagerly await their demise in an Armageddon that could not be more antithetic to techno optimists who yearn for a future where pain, suffering, and even death may be eliminated.

In this column, I will be writing about a moment in history when thousands of inventions and discoveries, from big data tracking our every move to editing DNA like you would a Microsoft Word doc, are rapidly expanding and converging. Poised to profoundly change how we live, they may also change what it means to be human.

Where this convergence—I call it “fusion”—will lead is anyone’s guess. Nor do we fully understand the pluses or the minuses of this Age of Fusion. The impact, however, will be felt at every level of society—in politics, business, law, philosophy, ethics, advocacy, and the arts. We already have seen the effects, both beneficial and not, of rapidly accelerating technologies over the past century on our environment, lifespans, transportation, communication, and ethics—and how people live.
Science has very little to say about what exactly causes some brains to embrace such extremes of evil and violence, or such a vehement rejection of change.
People’s response to new technologies is equally critical. Reactions range from fear and suspicion to exhilaration; from “I can’t figure out this dang app” to eagerness for a day when humans and machines merge into a super intelligence—what futurist and Google Director of Engineering Ray Kurzweil calls the Singularity.

For instance, are drones that sell for $399 cool or dangerous? Will Amazon use them and others to more efficiently deliver groceries and Google to bring Internet transponders to the poor, or will governments use them to spy on us and to continue to drop bombs?
In the context of the ongoing “technology: is it good or bad” debate it may seem far-fetched and even farcical to talk about villains that seem drawn out of Hollywood thrillers behaving like barbarians on the other side of the Earth from where most of us live. Indeed, ISIS’s penchant for running about swathed in black like the Dread Pirate Roberts and their rejection of 1,300 years of change is so astonishingly extreme that it’s hard for us to process. So are the images of beheadings and auto-de-fés conveyed, ironically, via the 21st technology of social media.
ISIS and the others should hardly be dismissed, however, as distant anomalies or blood-soaked curiosities. Like good, evil has a nasty predilection to reappear across history and across peoples and ideologies, including in recent decades the likes of the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge.

Regrettably, science has very little to say about what exactly causes some brains to embrace such extremes of evil and violence, or such a vehement rejection of change—a gap in science that should be addressed.
Biologists have identified a handful of genetic mutations that seem to portend violent behavior. For instance, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden recently discovered two genetic mutations that seem to correlate with the violent criminal behavior, including murder. First is the gene Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA), which is linked to dopamine levels in the brain, associated with people feeling happy and adjusted. The second is Cadherin 13 (CDH13), which has a strong correlation to controlling impulses. Both need further study to confirm and better understand.

Neuroscientists are also working on using Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans that measure activity in the brain to better understand and perhaps predict who might commit a terrorist act. So far, however, no one has identified a telltale terrorist gene or brain profile.
Nor do scientists have a deep understanding of the mechanisms of belief, extreme or otherwise, in the brain. One study I have written about previously, conducted in the lab of neuroscientist Jordan Grafman when he was the National Institutes of Health, measured the blood flow to locales in one’s head associated with religious belief. “The purpose of the study has been to discover the underlying cognitive structure of religious beliefs—to find out what cognitive processes take place when religious and nonreligious people think about religion,” said Dimitrios Kapogiannis, a postdoc in Grafman’s lab at the time. “Then we want to identify brain regions that become active with each such process.”
Kapogiannis and Grafman have tested only a few dozen subjects, however, and much work remains to be done, including studies on the combination of belief and violent behavior. (Kapogiannis’ and Grafman’s most recent results appear in the journal Brain Connect).
I have no doubt that various national security agencies are working in secret to better understand the genetics and biology of extremists—something I plan to write more about. I also want to look into the interplay of genetics and the environment to try to better understand the tale of two brains—the environment including the influences of ideology, unemployment, abuse, and lack of purpose that likely interact with genetics to produce extremists, and are likely to keep producing them until we understand this toxic interaction better.

Those of us already enjoying the burgeoning world of the future—that live lifestyles and have opportunities that no one in the seventh century could have dreamed of—need to understand with some urgency that not everyone shares their enthusiasm. Whether it’s genetics or environmental factors, or both, the human impulse to fret and dither about change—or to abhor it to the point of blowing up people and dreaming of world destruction—can be as powerful as the impulse to innovate.
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07:17

Don’t Stop Daydreaming: Why a Wandering Mind Is Good for You

If you can’t get through this article without checking your Facebook, walking to the fridge, scrolling through your phone, and choosing something on Netflix, don’t worry. 
 
I am one of those people who will be unlikely to finish writing this paragraph without checking my Twitter account, staring out the window blankly, changing my mind about what to have for dinner, and mentally rewriting what I will say three paragraphs from now. Once I ordered a book called Mindfulness to try to conquer my eruptive mind. I eagerly tore open the cardboard package, only to realize that I had bought the book several months before and forgotten about it.
According to many studies, mind-wandering saps our attention and makes us worse at performing a given task. Unsurprisingly, science supports the intuitive notion that it’s a bad idea to fantasize about snuggling with a warm, squirmy dachshund while operating heavy machinery. Much more tenuous data show that mind-wandering makes us unhappy, although that may have something more with what our mind wanders to—and our frustration with our poor performance at the task at hand.
For my fellow daydreamers, however, who only experience “flow” when floating down a river, there is some consolation. Other studies show that when our minds wander, we may be doing our planning and perhaps having creative moments.
In a new study, researchers at the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University in Israel were actually able, for the first time in a laboratory setting, to cause subjects’ minds to wander. When they applied transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the frontal lobes of subjects’ brains, the tendency to mind-wander increased (my mind reels, jumps, and shimmies at the thought of increased mind-wandering).
“When the situation is appropriate—for example, not during exam or intensive traffic while driving—mind-wandering is important and beneficial.”
“Just think about it, mind wandering is something very personal and individual. A person himself or herself does not know when and how she starts to mind wander,” Vadim Axelrod, lead researcher of the study, wrote in an email. “Here, by using electrical current, we temporarily changed something in the brain circuitry in such a way that a person decided to mind-wander more. And all this happened unconsciously because subjects did not feel that they were stimulated.”
“We also showed that performance on external task also increased. The result was not significant, but the trend was clear in all experiments,” Axelrod continued, noting how his study differed from most other studies that show that mind-wandering detracts from task performance. The best explanation for the difference in his study, he suggested, was that we use the same cognitive systems for attention to external activities, such as driving or cooking a meal, that we do for mind-wandering.
“I don’t think that mind wandering is inherently good or bad, although several theorists have argued pretty convincingly that we do it so much that it’s unlikely to be overwhelmingly costly and perhaps likely to be quite beneficial—whether for personal problem solving, planning for the future, imagining life’s possibilities, or simply escaping the realities of the here-and-now,” Michael Kane, a professor of psychology at University of North Carolina, Greensboro, told me via email. Kane’s research includes mind-wandering.
“Some ongoing activities are so cognitively demanding, or have such dire consequences when errors occur, that most people would agree that mind wandering should be avoided at all costs—think about auto racing or brain surgery,” Kane pointed out. “In thinking about the costs and benefits of mind wandering, though, we really have to take the perspective of the actor or thinker. For a given person at a given time, it may be much more important to think through a personal concern, mentally rehearse an argument, or solve a creative problem, than it is to perform their ongoing task perfectly.”
Axelrod agreed with Kane (and all my irritated elementary school teachers) that there are situations where mind-wandering is inappropriate or downright dangerous. Axelrod also thought, perhaps more emphatically than Kane, that there were times and places where mind-wandering could be beneficial. “I think that when the situation is appropriate—for example, not during exam or intensive traffic while driving—mind-wandering is important and beneficial,” he said. “To this extent, modern technologies decrease the amount of time people mind-wander because people always have a gadget to play with, instead of being with their own thoughts. Just look what passengers in the buses are doing.”
Axelrod is excited about the possibilities indicated by his research. “First, it might be interesting to combine tDCS stimulation with fMRI, so that we can see more directly and precisely what regions in the frontal lobes were influence using tDCS,” he said. “Second, it is interesting to test whether tDCS stimulation can not only enhance mind-wandering, but also to improve creativity and future planning. So, probably, one future day by applying tDCS we will be able to solve the problems that could not be solved before!”
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10:37
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
From the initial moment of attraction to growing old together, here are 10 psychology studies that all lovers should know.

1. Falling in love takes one-fifth of a second

It takes a fifth-of-a-second for the euphoria-inducing chemicals to start acting on the brain when you are looking at that special someone.
Brain imaging studies of love suggest that 12 different areas of the brain are involved.
When looking or thinking about a loved one, these areas release a cocktail of neurotransmitters across the brain, including oxytocin, dopamine, vasopressin and adrenaline.
The brain gets a similar ‘hit’ from love as it does from a small dose of cocaine.

2. Brain map of love and desire

The first study to look at the neural difference between love and sexual desire finds remarkable overlaps and distinct differences.
The results showed that some strikingly similar brain networks were activated by love and sexual desire.
The regions activated were those involved in emotion, motivation and higher level thoughts.
This psychology of love suggests that sexual desire is more than just a basic emotion, but involves goal-directed motivation and the recruitment of more advanced thoughts.
Love is built on top of these circuits, with one key area of difference being in the striatum. This area of the brain is typically associated with the balance between higher- and lower-level functions.

3. Kissing helps us choose

Two new studies of kissing have found that apart from being sexy, kissing also helps people choose partners–and keep them.
In a survey, women in particular rated kissing as important, but more promiscuous members of both sexes rated kissing as a very important way of testing out a new mate.
But kissing isn’t just important at the start of a relationship; it also has a role in maintaining a relationship.
The researchers found a correlation between the amount of kissing that long-term partners did and the quality of their relationship.
This link wasn’t seen between more sex and improved relationship satisfaction.

4. Couples look more similar after 25 years together

People who live with each other for 25 years may develop similar facial features.
One study on the psychology of love has found that over 25 years of marriage the facial features of couples became more similar, as judged by independent observers.
This may be because of similarities in diet, environment, personality or even a result of empathising with your partner over the years.

5. Long distance relationships can work

Contrary to the received wisdom, long distance relationships can work, according to new research.
Two factors that help keep long distance relationships alive are that these couples:
  • Tell each other more intimate information.
  • Have a more idealised view of their partner.
As a result, those in long distance relationships often have similar levels of relationship satisfaction and stability as those who are geographically close to each other.

6. Four things that kill a relationship stone dead

For over 40 years the psychologist Professor John Gottman has been analysing the psychology of love.
He’s followed couples across decades in many psychological studies to see what kinds of behaviours predict whether they would stay together.
There are four things that kills relationships stone dead: repeated criticism, lots of expressions of contempt like sarcasm, being defensive and stonewalling, which is when communication almost completely shuts down.

7. Modern marriages demand self-fulfilment

The face of marriage has changed significantly over the years, according to new research.
It used to be more about providing safety and solidity, now people want psychological fulfilment from their marriages.
More than ever people expect marriage to be more of a journey towards self-fulfilment and self-actualisation.
Unfortunately in the face of these demands, couples are not investing sufficient time and effort to achieve this growth.
The study’s author, Eli Finkel explained:
“In general, if you want your marriage to help you achieve self-expression and personal growth, it’s crucial to invest sufficient time and energy in the marriage. If you know that the time and energy aren’t available, then it makes sense to adjust your expectations accordingly to minimize disappointment.”

8. A simple exercise to save a marriage

If your relationship needs a little TLC, then there may be no need to go into therapy–watching a few movies together could do the trick.
A new three-year study finds that divorce rates were more than halved by watching movies about relationships and discussing them afterwards.
The study’s lead author, Ronald Rogge, said:
“The results suggest that husbands and wives have a pretty good sense of what they might be doing right and wrong in their relationships. Thus, you might not need to teach them a whole lot of skills to cut the divorce rate.
You might just need to get them to think about how they are currently behaving. And for five movies to give us a benefit over three years–that is awesome.”

9. The post-divorce relationship

Even after divorce, relationships don’t necessarily end, especially if there are children.
A study of co-parenting post-divorce has found it can go one of five ways, the first three of which are considered relatively functional:
  1. Dissolved duos, where (usually) the father disappears.
  2. Perfect pals, where parents continue to be best friends.
  3. Cooperative colleagues, where couples move on but remain on a good footing with each other.
  4. Angry associates, where the fighting continues after the divorce.
  5. Fiery foes, where children become pawns in the fight and usually suffer as a result.

10. It’s the little things

Finally, as we live in a highly commercialised world where we’re encouraged to think love can be bought and sold, it’s worth remembering that often it’s the small things that can make a difference.
A recent survey on the psychology of love of over 4,000 UK adults found that simple acts of kindness are often appreciated the most.
Bringing your partner a cup of tea in bed, putting the bins out or telling them they look good naked may all do a lot more than a box of chocolates or bunch of flowers (although these won’t hurt!).

Psychology of love

As the German poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke said:
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”
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10:36
Depression doesn’t always “present” as it should. Prolonged sadness, lack of hope, or loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities are the most commonly mentioned symptoms on mental health websites and in antidepressant ads, and they can certainly be the most affecting. But sometimes the disorder is subtler, and harder to identify, since it can make itself known in stranger ways than we’d like. Below are some of the less obvious, but nonetheless important, symptoms of depression – those you should be aware of (and which you should make your psychologist/psychiatrist aware of, if you’re seeing one). Knowing that depression can play out in counterintuitive ways is important, since knowing that you’re depressed is the first step in seeking help for it.
Externalized Symptoms
Depression can poke through in unexpected ways, both physical and behavioral – it’s kind of like depression is finding a way out, if it isn’t being acknowledged otherwise. “Some people, particularly men, are more likely to externalize their depression,” says psychologist and author of When Depression Hurts Your Relationship, Shannon Kolakowski, PsyD. “Depression symptoms come out through excessively drinking alcohol, seeking out an affair outside of the relationship, becoming aggressive, or withdrawing from those you love. Similarly, physical symptoms like backaches or low sexual desire are less recognized as depression because they’re externalized.” Extreme fatigue – both mental and physical – is a common symptom (of course it can be indicative of other things, so it’s important to get checked out), as are changes in eating habits (not eating, or conversely, overeating) or sleep patterns.
Lashing out
This is an extension of the one above, but worth highlighting, since it’s more specific, and may actually indicate a more severe form of depression. Sometimes the disorder can emerge as irritability or anger – when some part of you is at a loss internally or feeling helpless or hopeless, it’s easy to lash out. “Experiencing irritability, hostility, anger, and being sensitive to rejection are all common symptoms when depressed,” says Kolakowski. “Less well known is the fact that not only is irritability a sign of depression, but that it often signals a more severe level of depression. Hostility and irritability are also linked to a higher likelihood of having other mental illness, like anxiety. Other emotions such as sadness, shame, or helplessness often underlie the irritability, but irritability is what shows up on the surface.” If you’re noticing that you’re very short-tempered, or yelling at your spouse or kids a lot, or otherwise lashing out, take some time to think about what might emotion/s might be driving that behavior.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism and depression have been long connected to each other, and research studies have underlined the association for years. “Having all-or-nothing, rigid, and exceptionally high or unrealistic expectations are all symptoms of perfectionism, and can all contribute to depression,” says Kolakowski. “Perfectionism in depression tends to belie the idea that others will only love and accept someone if they’re perfect.” Self-esteem is what seems to mediate the link between perfectionism and depression, since perfectionists often think that they must be “perfect” to be acceptable, both to peers and themselves. “To perfectionists, to make a mistake is a sign of a personal defect or flaw, rather than the fact that it’s human to make mistakes, and that we all make mistakes. To counter the self-blame, fear of failure, and shame that comes with this, practicing self-acceptance and compassion are essential.” That may be very hard to learn to do on your own, so might need the help of a capable psychologist.
Inability to Concentrate
Everyone has problems concentrating from time to time, especially if something specific is on your mind. But pronounced concentration issues – so much that they affect your work or relationships – can also be a sign of underlying depression. “Concentration difficulties are a common symptom of depression, yet one that people may not associate with depression (think ADHD),” says psychologist Jon Rottenberg, PhD, author of The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic. “Many of the symptoms of depression are private experiences like sadness or feeling worthless, problems that people can conceal from others. What’s striking about concentration difficulties is that they directly impair functioning – these difficulties make it harder to work or go to school. Concentration problems can make people miss assignments or deadlines.”
He adds that it’s often these issues that prompt a person to get help in the end, since they’re less easy to hide from one’s coworkers, boss, or family. Concentration may be compromised because of another serious symptom of depression – rumination – in which a person turns certain topics over and over again in one’s head (past regrets, future worries), which can be time-consuming, futile, and depressogenic itself. And it can severely compromise one’s ability to concentrate on the present.
Extreme Guilt (about Ridiculous Stuff)
Guilt is obviously a natural sensation at times, but sometimes a deep feeling of guilt about many or most areas in your life can signal depression. Rottenberg calls it “pathological guilt,” and says, “what’s different for the depressed person is that the guilt can become all-consuming. He or she scans the past and sees only a series of failings. Sometimes the guilty thinking can become quite fanciful. The depressed person can feel guilty for being born, guilty for having had depression, and be unable to think of any major life role (friend, son or daughter, parent) without being consumed by feelings of regret.”
You Don’t See ‘Smiley Faces’
Being a “Debbie Downer” is sort of a funny joke, but there’s a much more macabre side to it: When you immediately pick out every negative element of a situation, and roundly ignore the positive, this pattern can escalate till it’s sabotaging. Humans are primed to pick up on negative cues, because they might indicate that action is required in the face of danger. So in a sense, negativity is an occupational hazard of being human – but when finding the negative colors your entire life, it starts to blur into depression. “It is striking that recent research suggests that someone with depression is less likely to visually focus on happy faces than a non-depressed person,” says psychologist Suzanne Roff-Wexler, PhD, founder of CompassPoint Consulting. “If we observed carefully, could we notice how a depressed person avoids happy faces or situations while being more ‘comfortable’ with the opposite? I wonder if someone with depression is even aware of this visual bias toward the negative.”
Being a “realist” can subtly shift into being pessimistic which can subtly shift into being negative and even feeling “at home” with depression. Watch yourself for how you react to neutral or even good news – does it seem good, or do you immediately discount it because it will surely turn out poorly in your mind?
Toggling
This is a critical one, because the “toggle” can be a big clue that something more serious is going on. When you’re depressed, a happy event can take you out of it, and things can seem fine, for a little while – but the depression typically returns once you acclimate to the event. “An interesting ‘symptom’ of depression that may not be well known,” says Roff-Wexler, “is when someone with depression is temporarily lifted out of that state due to a positive event, opportunity, or interpersonal connection. The depression is real and does not go away with a positive experience but it seems briefly alleviated, later to return. Think of it as toggling between being depressed and then not feeling depressed given outside circumstances.”
Self-Medicating
This is not such a subtle symptom, but is definitely worth mentioning. Depression often carries with it the comorbidity of addiction – people with depression are more likely to drink alcohol heavily, smoke, have eating disorders, and have other dependencies and addictions. After all, when you’re depressed, it’s natural to want to use the tools at your disposal to cope with it – the problem is that we’re not very good at picking healthy tools. It’s much easier to smoke and drink than to go to therapy and exercise. Of course, the former methods will ultimately make the depression worse, while the latter two will put you on track for recovery. If you notice that you’re engaging in any kind of substance or behavior more than you used to, or so much that it’s messing up your life in other ways, think seriously about talking to someone about it.
* * *
The subtler symptoms of depression definitely deserve attention if you’re experiencing any (or several) of them. Talk to a friend, or even better, reach out to a psychologist if you think you might be depressed. There’s no magic bullet for depression, but there are certainly treatments that are effective. It’s often just a matter of finding the right one, or the right combination. And remember you’re not alone: Lots of people deal with and recover from depression – and the more people talk about it, the easier the road to recovery becomes.

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