Neurology Motivational Quotes

All our sentiments - religious, romantic or any other - are born in the neurons.

Mother Nature, truly we are grateful for what you have made us. No doubt you did the best you could. However, with all due respect, we must say that you have in many ways done a poor job with the human constitution. You have made us vulnerable to disease and damage. You compel us to age and die – just as we’re beginning to attain wisdom. And, you forgot to give us the operating manual for ourselves! … What you have made is glorious, yet deeply flawed … We have decided that it is time to amend the human constitution … We do not do this lightly, carelessly, or disrespectfully, but cautiously, intelligently, and in pursuit of excellence … Over the coming decades we will pursue a series of changes to our own constitution … We will no longer tolerate the tyranny of aging and death … We will expand our perceptual range … improve on our neural organization and capacity … reshape our motivational patterns and emotional responses … take charge over our genetic programming and achieve mastery over our biological and neurological processes.

All efforts of persuasion by reasoned argument rely on the implicit assumption that homo sapiens, though occasionally blinded by emotion, is a basically rational animal, aware of the motives of his own actions and beliefs-an assumption which is untenable in the light of both historical and neurological evidence. All such appeals fall on barren ground; they could take root only if the ground were prepared by a spontaneous change in human mentality all over the world-the equivalent of a major biological mutation. Then, and only then, would mankind as a whole, from its political leaders down to the lonely crowd, become receptive to reasoned argument, and willing to resort to those unorthodox measures which would enable it to meet the challenge.

Possible explanations for talented language learning fall into two general areas. One view says: What matters is a person's sense of mission and dedication to language learning. You don't need to describe high performers as biologically exceptional, because what they do is a product of practice. Anyone can become a foreign-language expert - even an adult. (...) The other view says: Something neurological is going on. We may not know exactly what the mechanisms are, but we can't explain exceptional outcomes fully through training or motivation.

The great majority of those who, like Frankl, were liberated from Nazi concentration camps chose to leave for other countries rather than return to their former homes, where far too many neighbors had turned murderous. But Viktor Frankl chose to stay in his native Vienna after being freed and became head of neurology at a main hospital in Vienna. The Austrians he lived among often perplexed Frankl by saying they did not know a thing about the horrors of the camps he had barely survived. For Frankl, though, this alibi seemed flimsy. These people, he felt, had chosen not to know. Another survivor of the Nazis, the social psychologist Ervin Staub, was saved from a certain death by Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who made Swedish passports for thousands of desperate Hungarians, keeping them safe from the Nazis. Staub studied cruelty and hatred, and he found one of the roots of such evil to be the turning away, choosing not to see or know, of bystanders. That not-knowing was read by perpetrators as a tacit approval. But if instead witnesses spoke up in protest of evil, Staub saw, it made such acts more difficult for the evildoers. For Frankl, the “not-knowing” he encountered in postwar Vienna was regarding the Nazi death camps scattered throughout that short-lived empire, and the obliviousness of Viennese citizens to the fate of their own neighbors who were imprisoned and died in those camps. The underlying motive for not-knowing, he points out, is to escape any sense of responsibility or guilt for those crimes. People in general, he saw, had been encouraged by their authoritarian rulers not to know—a fact of life today as well. That same plea of innocence, I had no idea, has contemporary resonance in the emergence of an intergenerational tension. Young people around the world are angry at older generations for leaving as a legacy to them a ruined planet, one where the momentum of environmental destruction will go on for decades, if not centuries. This environmental not-knowing has gone on for centuries, since the Industrial Revolution. Since then we have seen the invention of countless manufacturing platforms and processes, most all of which came to be in an era when we had no idea of their ecological impacts. Advances in science and technology are making ecological impacts more transparent, and so creating options that address the climate crisis and, hopefully, will be pursued across the globe and over generations. Such disruptive, truly “green” alternatives are one way to lessen the bleakness of Earth 2.0—the planet in future decades—a compelling fact of life for today’s young. Were Frankl with us today (he died in 1997), he would no doubt be pleased that so many of today’s younger people are choosing to know and are finding purpose and meaning in surfacing environmental facts and acting on them.

The Brits call this sort of thing Functional Neurological Symptoms, or FNS, the psychiatrists call it conversion disorder, and almost everyone else just calls it hysteria. There are three generally acknowledged, albeit uncodified, strategies for dealing with it. The Irish strategy is the most emphatic, and is epitomized by Matt O’Keefe, with whom I rounded a few years back on a stint in Ireland. “What are you going to do?” I asked him about a young woman with pseudoseizures. “What am I going to do?” he said. “I’ll tell you what I’m goin’ to do. I’m going to get her, and her family, and her husband, and the children, and even the feckin’ dog in a room, and tell ’em that they’re wasting my feckin’ time. I want ’em all to hear it so that there is enough feckin’ shame and guilt there that it’ll keep her the feck away from me. It might not cure her, but so what? As long as I get rid of them.” This approach has its adherents even on these shores. It is an approach that Elliott aspires to, as he often tells me, but can never quite marshal the umbrage, the nerve, or a sufficiently convincing accent, to pull off. The English strategy is less caustic, and can best be summarized by a popular slogan of World War II vintage currently enjoying a revival: “Keep Calm and Carry On.” It is dry, not overly explanatory, not psychological, and does not blame the patient: “Yes, you have something,” it says. “This is what it is [insert technical term here], but we will not be expending our time or a psychiatrist’s time on it. You will have to deal with it.” Predictably, the American strategy holds no one accountable, involves a brain-centered euphemistic explanation coupled with some touchy-feely stuff, and ends with a recommendation for a therapeutic program that, very often, the patient will ignore. In its abdication of responsibility, motivated by the fear of a lawsuit, it closely mirrors the beginning of the end of a doomed relationship: “It’s not you, it’s … no wait, it’s not me, either. It just is what it is.” Not surprisingly, estimates of recurrence of symptoms range from a half to two-thirds of all cases, making this one of the most common conditions that a neurologist will face, again and again.

The great power of adopting a scientific approach to human behavior is the ability to unmask deep puzzles about human existence that otherwise hide in plain sight. Once we begin to think deeply and systematically about the antiquity, ubiquity, and power of our taste for intoxicants, the standard stories suggesting it’s some sort of evolutionary accident become difficult to take seriously. Considering the enormous costs of intoxication, which humans have been paying for many thousands of years, we would expect genetic evolution to work toward eliminating any accidental taste for alcohol from our motivational system as quickly as possible. If ethanol happens to pick our neurological pleasure lock, evolution should call in a locksmith.

As people began playing, Delgado watched the activity in their striata. This time, when people were allowed to make their own choices, their brains lit up just like in the previous experiment. They showed the neurological equivalents of anticipation and excitement. But during those rounds when participants didn’t have any control over their guesses, when the computer made a choice for them, people’s striata went essentially silent. It was as if their brains became uninterested in the exercise. There was “robust activity in the caudate nucleus only when subjects” were permitted to guess, Delgado and his colleagues later wrote. “The anticipation of choice itself was associated with increased activity in corticostriatal regions, particularly the ventral striatum, involved in affective and motivational processes.” What

Într-un eseu din 2008 din New York Reviw of Books, Michael Greenberg a descoperit poezia neuroplasticității. El a remarcat că sistemul nostru neurologic, „cu ramurile, transmițătoarele și interstițiile sale ingenios calibrate, posedă o capacitate de improvizație ce pare să oglindească însăși impredictibilitatea gândirii”. Este „un spațiu efemer care se schimbă pe măsură ce se schimbă experiența noastră”. Există multe motive pentru a fi recunoscători că hard diskul nostru mental este capabil să se adapteze experienței atât de prompt, că până și creierii bătrâni pot să învețe trucuri noi. Adaptabilitatea creierului nu a condus numai la noi tratamente și la speranțe noi, pentru aceia care suferă de leziuni sau boli cerebrale. Ea ne furnizează tuturor o flexibilitate mentală și o suplețe intelectuală care ne permit să ne adaptăm la situații noi, să dobândim prin învățare noi abilități și, în general, să ne lărgim orizontul. Știrea nu este însă în totalitate bună. Deși neuroplasticitatea ne oferă o evadare din determinismul genetic, o portiță de scăpare pentru gândire liberă și liber-arbitru, ea impune totodată comportamentului nostru propria sa formă de determinism. Pe măsură ce anumite circuite particulare din creierul nostru se întăresc prin repetiția unei activități fizice sau mentale, ele încep să transforme acea activitate într-un obicei. Paradoxul neuroplasticității, remarcă Doidge, este acela că, în schimbul întregii flexibilități mentale pe care ne-o acordă, ea poate sfârși prin a ne fereca în „deprinderi rigide”. Sinapsele declanșate chimic, care fac legături între neuronii noștri, ne programează, de fapt, să dorim să păstrăm exercitarea circuitelor pe care le-au format. Odată ce am făcut un nou cablaj de circuite în creierul nostru, scrie Doidge, „tânjim să le menținem activate”. Aceasta este calea pe care creierul face acordajul fin al operațiilor sale. Activitățile de rutină sunt îndeplinite din ce în ce mai rapid și eficient, pe când circuitele neutilizate se scurtează. Cu alte cuvinte, plastic nu înseamnă elastic. Buclele noastre neuronale nu sar să-și reia forma anterioară ca o bandă de cauciuc; ele se mențin în starea lor modificată. Și nimic nu spune că noua stare trebuie să fie una dezirabilă. Deprinderile rele pot fi sădite în neuronii noștri la fel de ușor ca cele bune. Pascual-Leone observă că „schimbările plastice pot să nu reprezinte în mod necesar un câștig comportamental pentru un subiect dat”. Pe lângă faptul de a fi „mecanismul de dezvoltare și învățare”, plasticitatea poate fi „o cauză de patologie”. Nu este surprinzător că neuroplasticitatea a fost legată de beteșugurile mentale mergând de la depresie până la tulburările obsesiv-compulsive sau tinitus. Cu cât un om suferind se concentrează asupra simptomelor sale, cu atât mai adânc acele simptome sunt gravate în circuitele sale neuronale. În cel mai rău caz, în esență mintea se antrenează pe sine să fie bolnavă. Multe forme de dependență sunt, de asemenea, consolidate de întărirea căilor plastice din creier. Chiar doze foarte mici de droguri adictive pot să altereze în mod dramatic fluxul de neurotransmițători, precum dopamina, o verișoară producătoare de plăcere a adrenalinei, pare-se că declanșează realmente pornirea sau oprirea unor gene particulare, amplificând și mai mult pofta de drog. Căile vitale devin mortale.

Biologically speaking, you are the child of Mother Nature, and neurologically speaking, you are the heirs of immortal bliss.

We are biological beings, shaped by genetic inheritance and the organization and health of our neurological structures. We have rich inner lives of diverse dispositions, motivations, cognitive abilities and processes, intrapsychic dynamics, and reinforcement histories. We are also social creatures, affected by our social and cultural environments. Together these elements help us understand normal phenomena (like memory construction, neurological function, and social attraction) and abnormal psychological occurrences (such as pseudo-memories, Alzheimer’s disease, and dysfunctional relationships). Unfortunately, much of the work on the

This, probably, is why Nietzsche, who understood this pathology from within, raged against both the modeltheistic epistemology — denying The "Real" Universe entirely — and against what he called the Revenge motive. Even if The "Real" Universe were real, he said again and again, we could not know it, since all we know is the existential world of experience. Besides that, linguistic analysis indicates rather clearly that The "Real" Universe is our creation, made up of our metaphors and models. But his deepest attack goes at the psychology of The "Real" Universe and its connection to Revenge, and the disguises of Revenge. If a man feels overwhelmed by The "Real" Universe, he will seek to destroy what oppresses him. Since we cannot get at The "Real" Universe, revenge must be directed at symbolic targets in the existential continuum. The Will to Power — which Nietzsche held was essentially a will to self-overcoming: to neurological self-criticism in my terminology: to become more than one was — then becomes deflected into a Will to Destroy.

I require external motivators, and for me this has resulted in a collection of accolades – qualifications, medals, letters after my name, and measurable achievements – visually and tangibly measurable. This can look ‘showy’ to others, and if you are regularly around a person like that, and your own self-esteem does not happen to be as robust as you would like or as robust as you believe it to be, then you can start to feel lesser or inferior.

In summary, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward;

Worse, tests emphasize exactly the wrong skills. They emphasize the memorization of massive amounts of facts that neurologically have a half-life of about 12 hours. They focus on short-term rewards through cramming to compensate for a failure in long-term development of value. It is no wonder we have financial meltdowns caused by successful students. We have to swallow a hard pill. The issue is not how do we make tests better? Or how can we have more or different types of tests? Or how do we arrange for more parts of a school program (such as a teacher’s worth) to be based on tests? The reality is, tests don’t work except as a blunt control-and-motivation mechanism for the classroom, the academic equivalent of MSG or sugar in processed food. In place of schools as testing centers, we have to begin imagining and setting up learning environments that involve no tests at all, that rely on real assessment and the creation of genuine value instead.

From a neurological standpoint, depression is simply decreased firing of the frontal lobe, the area at the front of the brain that gives us motivation and a sense of well-being.

The constellation of behaviours we call addiction is provoked by a complex set of neurological and emotional mechanisms that develop inside a person. These mechanisms have no separate existence and no conscious will of their own, even if the addict may often experience himself as governed by a powerful controlling force or as suffering from a disease he has no strength to resist. So it would be more accurate to say: addiction may not be a natural state, but the brain regions in which its powers arise are central to our survival. The force of the addiction process stems from that very fact. Here’s an analogy: let’s say the section of someone’s brain that controls body movements — the motor cortex — was damaged or did not develop properly. That person would inevitably have some kind of physical impairment. If the affected nerves managed nothing more than the motions of the little toe, any loss would hardly be noticeable. If, however, the damaged or undeveloped nerves governed the activity of a leg, the person would have a significant disability. In other words, the impairment would be proportional to the size and importance of the malfunctioning brain centre. So it is with addiction. There is no addiction centre in the brain, no circuits designated strictly for addictive purposes. The brain systems involved in addiction are among the key organizers and motivators of human emotional life and behaviour; hence, addiction’s powerful hold on human beings.

Since 1986 we have learned several more important things. Most families across the world are dysfunctional in that they don’t provide and support the healthy needs of their children. What results is an interruption in the otherwise normal and healthy neurological and psychological growth and development of the child from birth to adulthood. In order to survive, the traumatized child’s Real Self (True Self or Child Within) goes into hiding deep within the unconscious part of its psyche. What emerges is a false self or ego which tries to run the show of our life, but is unable to succeed because it is simply a defense mechanism against pain and not real. Its motives are based more on needing to be right and in control.