As biology major, I walked into Paul Grobstein’s Neurobiology and Behavior at the beginning of the semester expecting 3 hours a week of neurons, hormones, and lots of pictures of brains. Naturally, I became confused when Emily Dickinson was the topic of conversation of the first day. Well that’s odd, I thought, but surely next class we’ll begin the real neuroscience. Yet, here I am, at the end of the semester, and I feel as though my “real neuroscience” was all a distant fantasy. I never had to buy an expensive textbook, and I never had to memorize countless regions of the brain. Instead I chose my own homework and paper topics, and researched and discussed the neuroscience that interested me the most. Instead of remembering how bored I was sitting through a series of slides, I remember being engaged in lively arguments and heated discussions.

          Your professor has just asked you to present a research project in front of a lecture hall filled to the rafters with people. You completed the project weeks ago, and you know the information like the back of your hand. Yet, as soon as you stand in front of the podium, your hands start to shake. Your brow beads with sweat and your heart begins to race. As you attempt your first word, your voice quivers and your throat clenches. You fumble with your notes and you ask yourself ‘Why on earth did I agree to this?’ You wish that you were anywhere but behind that podium and in front of hundreds of eyes, and you blame the common phenomenon of stage fright (1).

As I sat down on Thursday night before dinner, I flipped on the TV, wanting to let my mind drift away while some mind numbing TV entertainment news informed me of the latest gossip.  E True Hollywood Stories never fails to let me down, so I turned it on and awaited the familiar theme music…

“Hello, I am Suzy Sanders and thank you for watching E True Hollywood Stories!  For you Hollywood viewers at home we have a very special story for you tonight, the true story of the three little pigs…”  Ugh, I sighed. Another over dramatized television special.  I almost turned the television off, but for some reason though better of it. 

Weight loss is always a popular topic of New Year’s resolutions, talk shows and self help guides. However, recently concern has turned toward a more severe form of weigh gain, obesity.  It seems one cannot open a newspaper without reading about it.  In fact, in 2000, Philadelphia was the fattest city in the United States and in 2005 the third fattest city. (1)  Clearly, obesity is a pervasive problem, a disease occurring with alarming frequency.  Being obese, having a body mass index of over 30, (2) is associated with risk factors such as high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, sleep apnea, cancer, diabetes, and death: 300,000 deaths a year in the United States are linked to obesity. (3)  In 1998, the Nation Institute of Health (NIH) found that 55% of the United States population is overweight, and estimated that in 2004 this had climbed to two-thirds of adults in the US.  These statistics have grabbed the attention of both the NIH and the World Health Organization (WHO), which composed a Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity, and Health in 2004. (4)  While many factors and causes are being investigated for this growing problem, the science behind addiction can help us understand this disease.

In Phantoms in the Brain, author V.S. Ramachandran, M.D., PH.D describes a number of case studies of neurological phenomena that demonstrate the human mind’s ability to reconstruct reality.  He explains, among many other phenomena, how amputees may develop phantom limbs so well-defined they can “reach out” and “grab” objects, and how the brain fills in images to compensate for blind spots.  Through explaining these unusual situations, Ramachandran also explains how the brains of most people work, filling in missing information and reconstructing reality.  Though he never uses the terms “I-function” or “story-teller,” these are the equivalent concepts discussed in class.

“Smart, funny, and attractive” are the standard trio of personal ads.  Having a good sense of humor is considered an admirable trait in human society.  But why is this trait so important to us?  It does not appear to have any real advantage, other than making someone “likeable,” so why would it ever evolve?  The most likely explanation is that humor was sexually selected for because it is an indicator of a creative and agile mind able to solve problems and to provide for a mate.

Humor is a form of creativity, because it requires a novel interpretation of information.  Creativity can be considered the ability to rearrange preexisting pieces of information to create a novel idea (1).  Creativity most likely evolved during a very short period of time known as the “creative explosion” of the Upper Paleolithic period due to the merging of several cognitive abilities.  Before this creative explosion, the stone tools used by Early Humans show very little change.  Then suddenly, many different types of tools developed, along with art and other aspects of culture.  This creative explosion most likely coincides with the development of modern language abilities (2).  Steven J. Mithen explains that language is necessary to express creative thoughts, because our minds are not meant to deal with unreality; creative ideas that break the laws of reality must be expressed and communicated in order to be understood.  One of the major differences between animal communication and human language is that language allows people to talk about what does not exist or is not present (3).  Humans can speculate, lie, and tell fantastical stories using creative language.  And they can also tell jokes.  But why do we tell jokes?  Did an Early Human with a witty sense of humor have an evolutionary advantage over a straight-man?  This may not seem likely, but a creative mind would have offered a survival advantage.

Introduction

Bernard Baars’ book “In the theater of consciousness: The workspace of the mind” was an overall excellent and stimulating read. Baars takes the reader on a scientific journey through consciousness starting with methods of studying consciousness, moving to exploring consciousness in great detail from many different perspectives devised from empirical data, and ending with the uses of consciousness. At few points throughout the book, it is difficult to remain focused such as when Baars continually analyzes many of William James’ writing. However, Baars methods of studying consciousness emphasize the involvement of subjective experience. He provides many different exercises which can be performed by the reader that validate his ideas, making the book highly interactive, and the didactic manner, fun. Learning about Baars' ideas through these interactive tasks was similar to sitting in on a Neurobiology class when Paul teaches vision and asks us to “close one eye”. There was substantial overlap in material between the book and the class and furthermore the book extended on ideas we went over in class as well as contributed new relevant material. This book added tremendous value to the Neurobiology and Behavior class experience.

        Blurred vision, impaired motor coordination and memory, and slurred speech are characteristics that clearly demonstrate that alcohol affects the brain. Adolescence is a time when people begin to use alcohol much more frequently. A survey of 70,000 people by the Center for Science in Public Interest has shown that 41.7% of people ages 12-17 have used alcohol in their lifetimes, and that the prevalence of binge drinking (five or more drinks in the same occasion) gradually increases from 3% at age 13, to 38% at age 20 (CSPI, 2000). Extreme intensities of alcohol consumption among adolescents is especially perturbing because a great deal of structural and function brain development occurs during this period. (Spears, 2002). Furthermore, evidence is increasingly suggesting that alcohol affects brain function and behavior of adolescents differently from adults, and that adolescents are extremely vulnerable to the long-term deleterious effects alcohol has on brain function and behavior.     

Pierluigi Gambetti, one of the discoverers of the condition known as fatal familial insomnia (FFI), claims that it is "the worst disease you can get." (5) Given the vast number of diseases in the world, Gambetti's claim seems farfetched at first glance, maybe even selfish; who wouldn't want to take credit for discovering one of the worst diseases in the world? But a quick overview of the disease presents solid evidence in favor of the claim- and some interesting insights about the many tasks of the I-function.

FFI has been discovered in only 28 families worldwide; it is an autosomal dominant gene mutation, meaning that a parent with the disease has a fifty percent chance of passing it on to his or her child (2). That much is predictable. But every other aspect of the disease is wildly unpredictable, forcing family members to make difficult decisions. If parents have such a high chance of passing on the disease, one might ask, why don't they simply choose not to have children? The answer: FFI , unlike many other fatal genetic conditions, doesn't appear until the victim is middle-aged, and tests to see whether parents carry the FFI mutation only recently became available (1). Here the first questions of the I-function, and the first paradoxes of the disease, appear. If this disease occurred in childhood, natural selection would have long ago done away with it. Because it does not strike until middle age, however, parents who may be carriers must make difficult decisions about childbirth. Paradoxically, it is in the parents' best interest to have more children, in order to ensure that at least some live FFI free into old age. More children, however, also means more potential FFI cases- a tough paradox for the I-function to work through.

The bond between mother and child is one that develops almost instantly after birth, basically as soon as the mother and child get in close enough contact to smell one another. That's right, smell. The sense of smell is one that goes underrated in our human society based primarily on sight and sound, but it is one that has great influence over a lot of our behaviors. That mother and child never would have had that chance to bond if it weren't for smell because the mother wouldn't have been pregnant in the first place; smell is one of the necessary senses in finding a mate. Smell plays a roll from initial attraction of possible mates, through pregnancy, up to birth and development of the baby.
Our olfactory systems can respond to chemicals that we either are aware of as odors, or the chemicals can go unnoticed by our I-functions. Those chemicals that we are aware of as scents start on receptors on the sensory cells in the nose, which pass the signal on to the olfactory bulb, located under the frontal lobe in the brain. Only then does the signal get passed on to the cortex (1). The unconscious response to certain chemicals is most likely processed through the vomeronasal organ (VNO), which is located on either side of the nasal septum. Pheromones are odorless chemicals, processed through the olfactory system, that influence sexual behavior and attractiveness (2). So these colorless, odorless molecules are released in everyone's natural body odors, hoping that the right mate will process them, fueling attraction.
A man and a woman sit next to each other on a couch at a house party. They chat, all the while unconsciously absorbing one another's pheromones. The woman spent the afternoon with her nursing sister and niece. Exposure to the compounds released by the mother and infant, caused an unconscious increase in sexual desire for the woman (3). The couple discovers a mutual attraction. One thing lead to another, some time passes, and the woman finds out that she is pregnant. This theoretical situation might not have gone anywhere had this couple not found attraction in smell. Finding attraction through someone else's pheromones is evolutionarily beneficial, because humans usually smell best and appeal most to others who have certain genetic immunities to diseases that is most different from the others' own genetic make-up (4). Therefore, this resulting pregnancy has a higher chance to have stronger genetic resistance to disease.
The theoretical woman is now in the midst of her first trimester, and is miserable. She feels sick all the time; basically any smell makes her nauseated. She is at the height of morning sickness, and her brain circuits in the olfactory system have become rewired (5). Her olfactory sensory neurons are extremely sensitive to strong odors, so she is brutally aware of the presence of any sort of pungent smell (6). Although she may feel absolutely miserable, her morning sickness is a good sign for the health of her fetus. The sensitivity to odor stems from the fact that early on in development the fetus is very sensitive to anything that the mother puts in her body, so when the mother has a strong aversion to pungent smells she is less likely to consume whatever the source of the smell is. This sort of unconscious protection actually works: nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is associated with better pregnancy outcome (7). Sensitivity to smell early on in pregnancy is actually beneficial for the fetus in the long run.
Six more months pass, and the baby is born at last. Within minutes after birth, the baby is placed on her mother. The close physical contact starts the bonding between mother and infant. The baby can smell her mother's olfactory cues emitting from her nipples, which draws her in to breastfeed. If an infant is exposed right away to his mother's breast, he will be able to recognize his mother's milk over other lactating woman, and will breastfeed for longer stretches of time (8). This initial skin-to-skin contact imprints the olfactory cues of the mother onto the infant, making him able to recognize his own mother over other mothers, and receive more nutrients through longer periods of breastfeeding. A child shows preference for his mother's smell over that of other mothers up until about age 5 (9). The infant also gets imprinted onto the mother. After only a 10-minute to 1-hour exposure to her baby, 90% of mothers can correctly identify her infant through smell alone (10). The role of smell in bonding between mother and child makes evolutionary sense. As a mother, being able to recognize your infant among other babies is important if you want to raise your child, not your neighbor's, into adulthood to successfully pass on your genes. As an infant, you want to be able to recognize the mother that is responsible for you, will take care of you, and most importantly, feed you, so you need to know what that breast smells like.
Smell plays an extremely strong evolutionary role. Unconscious olfactory mechanisms control for the attraction of genetically different mates, while more conscious mechanisms make sure a pregnant mother doesn't consume anything to harm her developing fetus. After birth, the smells exchanged between mother and infant make sure their bond remains strong, leading to longer breastfeeding times which leads to a stronger infant. Also, this makes sure a mother and infant can find each other out of the sea of mothers and infants there are. All of these traits make sure that offspring is as genetically and physically strong as possible.
In our culture where we deny natural body smell, covering it up and washing it away constantly, it turns out that we are fighting against nature. The smells and pheromones that we release and that ultimately get processed by other people's nervous systems transmit fairly complex information. Although we try our best to suppress our own natural scent, the chemicals get released anyway, communicating with those around us. The brains of our neighbors take in and process this information, all without influence from the I-function. Our brains know what's good for us even though we're not aware of it-helping us choose mates to conceive and raise successful offspring. In conclusion, the sense of smell, probably the most unappreciated sense, plays a strong hand in the perpetuation of the human race. It helps make sure offspring are viable even from before the act of conception on through early postnatal development. So appreciate the olfactory system, it helped you get here.

Sources Cited
1. The Vivid World of Odors