Rabbit Holes. Brain Networks and Networked Brains- an inelegant rambling.
As we think of ways in which networks are made visible, the first image that may come to mind might be a delicate spider's web encountered during an early morning walk. A fine mist has settled on this web, capturing and scattering the sunrise, and thus our attention, as we walk on the narrow pavement after a few morning errands. We were connecting various aspects of our life- a need for nutrition, water, personal care. The spider's web met each of those same needs. The gnats have been consumed and are no longer visible, most of the water droplets will evaporate, others already absorbed or drunk. The web itself is a creative expression of connection, a place to gather information and sustenance.
And what about making our social network visible, if not to our community, at least to ourselves?- our Web of Support with anchors, tangible and intangible values shared, our balloon, scissor cuts, caring for those who anchor us, the shifting social norms we live within?
And electronic networks- images of early switchboards- an operator with a headset pulling cords and inserting them in the appropriate receiver- a person at the center of those connections, but also a potential interloper, listening in on conversations.
The complexity of an electronic network is reduced to two-dimensional, wiring diagrams, simplifying the complex into a flat, two-dimensional space, with each relationship reduced to a simplistic set of connections. Perhaps this line of thinking limited our ability to see the brain as a complex flow of energy, and to adopt the simplistic understanding of Left Brain and Right Brain, while at the same time understanding that certain functions of the body such as handedness originate in the opposite side of the brain.
Brain research is exploring how fragments of memories are not mapped to a single place in our brain, but in multiple locations. Our strongest memories are expressed repeatedly through stories. Each time we tell them, they are re-mapped. New details are recalled. New connections are made.
Dementia tears at the fragments of these memories. The disease process combines memories in ways which, when expressed to others are received as nonsense- no sense, no meaning.
How might Awareness, Emotion, Empathy be connected to Awareness, Advocacy, Action or Default, Executive, Salience?
From one of the articles cited in Brain Networks:
"People find it easier to learn about topics that interest them, but little is known about the mechanisms by which intrinsic motivational states affect learning. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how curiosity (intrinsic motivation to learn) influences memory."
Default: Brain Stem/lizard brain/reactionary- life safety- preserve our body through any means- movement, flight, fright, freeze: is brain stem the essence of feeling- mad, sad, glad, scared, and all the rest of the feelings wheel?
Executive: Human Doing having the power to put plans, actions, or laws into effect:
Salience: Human Being Meaning making, sense making conspicuous, noticeable, outstanding, prominent, remarkable, and striking. salient applies to something of significance that merits the attention given it.
What about our focus on the brain as a place for processing words, what about smells, sounds, images, temperature, texture?
Thinking about my sister: Her decline has been marked by the loss of Salience, then Executive. She is physically present, but her loss of brain functions have placed her this realm of expressing fragments of words, or words that make no sense to me. Do they make sense to her? Is there a translation function that interrupts the process of expression, like a poorly tuned radio where some elements get through, but not others. The other aspects were there, but distributed elsewhere- so that multiple incomplete thoughts are being broadcast, but unless they are unified, they are not comprehendible. But if enough elements are collected, sense is made.
But what if what we call making sense is based on incomplete information? We make decisions based on what we think of as coherence, but is actually a small part of the messages. A bit like telling history only through the eyes of dead, white, male, kings, at war, rather than incorporating the stories of all people living out the completeness of their lives.
Insights from Barbara. Jon is aware of his dementia, he knows who people are, he has feelings, memories, he can't put them together in ways that make sense to others. This is a treasured, precious time. They are both conscious that their ability to connect will change with each day. This is the best day. Rather than thinking of dementia that is creating someone who is less than they were, what if we think of dementia as a part of who we are?
Barbara is reflecting on how she has interacted with people with dementia in the past- friends, aunts, uncles-- minimizing interactions. How does she hope people will interact with Jon- with grace, support and connection and a desire to venture into the space of adventures in improvisation.
Starshine has lost a sense of who people are, not just their names. Starshine is the teller of star stories, like the indigenous wisdom of being the keeper of the water story, the bird story, the sun story. Or the wisdom of being the Irish keeper of a cure- the result being many people connected to our health, rather than a single practitioner. Who has received stories and who has Starshine passed her gift of holding the stories of the stars?
Is this a bit of streetlight effect? I am now seeing what has been all around me, but this focus on Brain Networks has me seeing it in new ways, as connected. When we make sense, we make connections. We sometimes make connections when there is none to be found. Or we send out one-way messages, not knowing if they are being received, read, responded to, felt.
Are the tiers of the feelings wheel like the default, executive, salient? Mad, Sad, Glad, Scared are the core expressions, and as we add nuance, we are processing the emotion differently. Not necessarily deeper, but in another way. This is a matter of both, and rather than either/or.
From Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina: Our brains are designed to help us make complex decisions, regarding our survival, in near-constant motion and changing weather conditions. Nearly nothing about the way we learn today prompts these elements of our brain. Decisions we are asked to make tend to be simplistic, unrelated to our survival, but only if we are open to understanding that the choice to sit in front of a screen all day is not good for our long-term survival. We are considerably more sedentary, compared to our ancestors who were on the move to sustain their very being. We live the majority of our lives indoors, although our brains and bodies are sustained by access to light, sounds, air.
From biophilia: When we are engaged in intense learning experiences- in conversation, reading, writing, experimenting, making, moving, our brains seek opportunities to re-set. To look at a blank wall, to look at images and information on a wall that are relevant to our investigation, or to see nature. Envision the impact this has on our learning environments- being able to look up at a blank wall, uncluttered by words and images, laminated vision statements, etc. Looking up at a learning process wall to see images and words, feedback from our peers about our learning journey. Looking out an expanse of windows to be recharged by the light, vegetation, sense of the changing seasons, time of day, change of weather.
And that our memories and experiences are distributed to many parts of the brain- and the more we recall and use them, the more of an imprint it makes. Also protects us- we have ideas, experiences stored in many places, not a singular place. The more we recall the story, the more we can readily recall it. The more ways it is imprinted, the more we can retrieve it- for example, singing a song while skipping rope engages more of our body and brain. If we repeat that, each time, we are having a new experience while recalling the prior experiences. They become overlapped, creating yet something else.
If we had precisely the same experience- working in a factory, ground hogs day, The stories and experiences would potentially keep mapping to precisely the same elements of the brain. But some variation. It rained, it was cold, the commute to work was different, what we ate, who we encountered changes, and now the story changes- like Run Lola Run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_Lola_Run
Experiments with gray scale on phone- our phones have become a constant source of distraction/attention. The color, the moving images trigger so many essential elements of brain activity. Grey, slows it down, makes it uninteresting.
What is the creative artifact to share this learning journey? Something like the video Thompson shared that helps us to understand the evolution of fedwiki- a dynamic collection of clusters connected to each other, transforming the ever-evolving whole. There was a simplistic program called blind watchmaker- you set in motion a set of rules and the program carried out those instructions over time.
What if we apply our emerging understanding of the networked brain into a brain networks- each of our brains do not have a distinct boundary, we overlap, our auras overlap, intersect, impact each other.
Surprise- What did I learn?
Delight- What brought me joy?
Connection to nature, trees networked - mother tree
Wonder- What am I now curious about?
distill into meaning- form.
Making Meaning- What sense can I make of this?