2014-08-03 08:06:13
The question of whether or not we are free beings and, therefore, responsible for our actions, continues to be debated in philosophical and scientific circles, on those rare occasions when the brains of these intellectuals are not kidnapped by the economic crisis, the tournament or world championship on duty, or family and social obligations. Modern functional brain imaging techniques make it possible to detect which regions of the brain are put into operation when a decision is made. Using this technology, about six years ago, scientists were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether or not a person was going to make a simple decision (press or not a button, pick up an object or not…). The brain activity that enabled this prediction began no less than about 10 seconds before the subjects were aware of what they had decided, suggesting that the brain decided first, and then informed whatever the “self” was. ” of the decision made, making that “I” believe, furthermore, that “he” had decided it.
This state of affairs is too harsh for those who believe that human beings are situated on a plane above Nature and that their behavior is not controlled by material mechanisms. And, it is true, it is one thing for the brain to start working when we decide something, and quite another for the decision to depend on that functioning. If that were so, modifying it could cause a change in our decisions. This is precisely what happens.
A pioneering Spaniard
Fortunately, today it is not well seen to experiment with the brains of those human beings who have one, an increasingly scarce variety, given what has been seen. For purely scientific, and not therapeutic, reasons, we cannot implant electrodes in people’s brains to modify their functioning with small electrical discharges. However, these types of experiments have been carried out. Professor José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado (1915-2011), a native of Ronda (Málaga) – who emigrated, after the Spanish Civil War, to the United States, where he worked as a professor of Physiology at Yale University – was the first to implant electrodes. activated by radio in the brains of cats, monkeys, chimpanzees, gibbons, bulls, and also human beings. With these gadgets, Delgado was able to control his behavior (induce or stop movements) with just the push of a button, like today we press the buttons on the TV remote control. The mood could also be modified, depending on the place in the brain in which the electrodes had been implanted, and sensations of joy, mental concentration, relaxation, colored visions and other strange sensations not easily definable could be induced (also like when we see the TV).
The experiment that Delgado defined as the most impressive of those he carried out – even more so than the one in which he was able to stop the charge of a bull by pressing a button – was the one carried out with a chimpanzee named Paddy. Paddy was quite nervous and Delgado tried to cure her nervousness. The way she did it is paradigmatic. He connected electrodes to Paddy’s brain, which, in turn, were connected to a computer, which in those years, the 1960s, was very primitive. The electrodes collected the signals that Paddy’s brain emitted. One particular signal, produced by the brain region called the amygdala, was indicative of the animal’s nervous state. When the computer detected it, it emitted another one that acted on the electrodes implanted in Paddy’s brain, causing him an unpleasant sensation. Thus, within a few hours, Paddy’s two brain tonsils began to emit signals less frequently: she Paddy had learned to calm down. Delgado speculated that a similar mechanism could be used to learn to control panic attacks and other similar disorders associated with activities that could be detected in specific areas of the brain.
inside the brain
Rodríguez Delgado’s experiments, which few talk about today, have not been refuted. Far from it, as I said above, new technologies indicate that the brain decides for us, and even creates an “I” in a physiological and, therefore, mechanical way. This is hard to accept.
However, science is not characterized by piety, but by truth, and some researchers are still interested in studying whether or not the supposed freedom of choice exists. This is the case of two scientists, one European and the other American, who have studied whether stimulation of some brain regions of macaque monkeys can modify their choices. The researchers, who publish their results in the journal Current Biology, find that a brain region critical for the “freedom” of choice is the so-called ventral tegmental area, an area located in the center of the brain, involved in the circuits that enable sensation. reward, and connected to the prefrontal cortex, an area also considered fundamental in decision making.
By stimulating the ventral tegmental area with an electrode, the researchers were able to modify the animals’ preferences for a color or an object over and over again. Since they were macaques, they could not study whether electrical stimulation also changed their political preferences or their favorite team, but it will work out. In any case, these studies continue to confirm the absence of freedom of choice and advance the understanding of the areas of the brain involved in making us believe that we are free.
NEW WORK BY JORGE LABORDA.
It can be purchased here:
Chained circumstances. Ed. Lulu
Other works by Jorge Laborda
One Moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One Moon one civilization why the Moon tells us we are alone in the universe
The intelligence funnel and other essays
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