HEALTH FOR LIFE

Sad Brain, Happy Brain

What cognitive neuroscience is uncovering about the fascinating biology behind our most complex feelings. As it turns out, love really is blind.

By Michael Craig Miller, M.D. | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 13, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Sep 22, 2008

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  • Posted By: crowley@bit7.net @ 09/22/2008 3:14:05 PM

    Dr. Miller needs to re-watch "Duck Soup". Groucho Marx's mirror routine was not performed with his brother Chico. Harpo Marx performed the routine with Groucho. In later years, he performed it again on the I Love Lucy show iwith Lucille Ball.

  • Posted By: Kattt @ 09/16/2008 7:17:13 PM

    So, my cat, whom I care for quite deeply, has no remorse, no compassion, self-awareness or, sadly, love. Without these traits, her species has managed to survive just fine, both domestically and in the wild. To suggest that the love I feel from my woman, or the imagination and emotions that stir in my head when I listen to Bach is there because I needed it to "survive", genetically, is ridiculous.

    I agree that humans must endure being creatures living in the world; but I also conclude that we are more than creatures. What creature would kill itself because it's "sad"? A creature has no beliefs. Just because our brains light up in different sections when we're feeling different things, I find it disturbing that any scientist anywhere would have the audacity to conclude that they understand where love or remorse or compassion stem from (e.g. love being "created" in the brain instead of love being an outside force that the brain is reacting to).. Bottom line, homo sapiens would have survived and thrived without any higher understanding, love or compassion. We made tools and hunted well before we discovered any notion of God and the universe.

    These researchers, who can't even see GRAVITY in the universe, are trying to dissect love? And whose love was this? Who were these people who were asked to feel love while laying in a brain scanning machine? The only thing this kind of science is good for is facilitating the pathways of injured brains.

    What they've seen thus far in their scans is nothing more than our brain's animal responses to various stimuli. I'm sure my cat's brain would light up too if you show her a picture of a mouse. It doesn't mean she'll ever feel empathy for it.

    • Posted By: puddytat @ 09/21/2008 2:49:36 AM

      "Comment: So, my cat, whom I care for quite deeply, has no remorse, no compassion, self-awareness or, sadly, love."

      Just curious - how did you come to that conclusion? Rather than the opposite conclusion that we have our emotions in common with our fellow-animals, and for the same reason, that the purpose of emothions is to drive behaviours? To take just one example, is parental care by mammals driven by unconscious processes or by love? Observation and reason point overwhelmingly to the latter IMO. Not to say that all animals feel all the same gamut of emotions or to the same degree (fear being probably the most common) - but these are the very details that get fascinating.

  • Posted By: foundmyhappiness @ 09/16/2008 3:58:06 PM

    The good doctor dropped the ball at the end of the article when he put a value on the two "belief's". A believer would not have any reason or need to attach emotion to the statement re the bible and God's word. The two different belief's are equally accepted as TRUTH as far as the brain is concerned for the believer - It would be interesting to learn if the centers are the same for one who is lost - as in dropped-off alone in the middle of a strange place, needing to find their way "home" versus another who is searching for "the meaning of life" or their purpose... My money says different centers, any thoughts?

  • Posted By: anil10 @ 09/16/2008 2:13:25 PM

    The brain can never die. It is the other laboring parts which have a definitive life span. A million pushes for the heart, 3 million filterations max (for example) for the kidney, and so on. These organs are prgrammed to die. I have rarely in my short life span seen a soul die of knee faliure. The brain keeps the othe organs happy as long as they live. The brain can never die so long there is food.
    However the emotions 'happy' 'sad' 'angry' lie in the Soul. I feel the soul is memory (memory is just a word). This memory remains active in our brain and our body and more so in our children and children of our friends/foes whose lives we touch.

  • Posted By: anil10 @ 09/16/2008 2:13:04 PM

    The brain can never die. It is the other laboring parts which have a definitive life span. A million pushes for the heart, 3 million filterations max (for example) for the kidney, and so on. These organs are prgrammed to die. I have rarely in my short life span seen a soul die of knee faliure. The brain keeps the othe organs happy as long as they live. The brain can never die so long there is food.
    However the emotions 'happy' 'sad' 'angry' lie in the Soul. I feel the soul is memory (memory is just a word). This memory remains active in our brain and our body and more so in our children and children of our friends/foes whose lives we touch.

  • Posted By: rschmeec @ 09/15/2008 9:53:40 PM

    Seems to confuse cause and correlation.

    Kipling's JUST SO STORIES are much more amusing, and probably just as wise.

  • Posted By: rschmeec @ 09/15/2008 9:52:13 PM

    Seems to confuse the distinction between cause and correlation.

    Kipling's JUST SO STORIES are much more amusing.

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