There are several highly-ordered neurological representations of the surfaces of your body within a cortical region called “S1″, which occupies a narrow band that roughly bisects the cerebral cortex mantle from a location just above and in front of your ear, and extends from ear to ear. When you stimulate a specific location on the body surface (for example, on the thumb), neurons are selectively excited at specific locations in the brain (the “thumb zones” of body surface ‘representations’). By documenting those responses in detail, a scientist can reconstruct orderly ‘topographic maps’ of the body surface in this cortical region. [Historically, there was believed to be a single large body surface representation in "S1". In the 1970's, we showed there there were at least four 'maps' across the "SI" cortical band, arrayed as mirror images of one another.]
We have known for several decades that these ‘maps’ are not fixed anatomical constructs. They can be easily modified by learning, and they quickly re-compose themselves after peripheral or central injury or amputation. On the basis of such studies, we long ago drew the conclusion that the forms of neurological representations of the things of the world cannot be fixed and invariant; they must be relational. To cite the simplest of examples, while body surface maps change with learning, we are never confused about where we’re being stimulated, even while neurons representing one skin location (e.g., a thumb) might have been representing a completely different skin location (e.g., a middle finger) a week or two or three earlier. Activity generated in a given neuron at a given location can have a completely different meaning about ‘whereness’ hour by hour or day by day or week by week. This inherent ‘plasticity’ supports the use-dependent SPECIALIZATION of our brain’s representation of sensory informatoin, crucial for our mastering skill after skill in a learning context.
A recent study conducted with the collaboration of an eminent Heidelberg German neuropsychologist (Professor Herta Flor) with neurologists in Professor Hans-Jochen Heinze’s Magdeburg University group demonstrates that these activity-expressed cortical body surface representations (‘homunculi’) are also ‘plastic’, to some extent, in immediate, ongoing time (Schaefer et al, Neuroimage, 2007).
Their strategy: Fool an individual, through an illusion, into believing that their arm is longer than it REALLY is; then measure a distance across the body surface ‘map’ in the brain to see if that map is altered. For experimental convenience, these scientists measured the cortical distance between the center of representation of the tip of the thumb and the fifth finger. Sure enough, when their subjects (suffering from the illusion!) mentally perceived these points on the body as farther apart, the centers of activity in the brain ‘representing’ them WERE a little bit farther apart!
This one of a long list of studies published over the past several years that are contributing to an important additional correction about how we think about how the brain represents the things of the world (including things as fundamental as the cortex’s representation of own body surfaces). Representations in the cortex are DYNAMIC constructs, altered moment by moment in time by ongoing, top-down biases and predictions.
So if you THINK you are short of stature, or that any important part of you is smaller than you wish it was, THINK BIGGER, and for your brain………(to a small but significant extent)….VOILA!!
Related posts:
- Jack’s hippocampus is bigger than yours.
- Creating a representation of the world when you can’t see it.
- How can the same brain plasticity-based training programs help individuals with cognitive losses arising from normal aging, exposure to IED explosions, or chemotherapy?
- A little more neuroplasticity help is on the way!
Some with autism/ASD report not having a “sense” of their body, and that they engage in repetitive movements in order to fee their bodies, and also visuall sense their bodies around them.
It’s my impression that it is not that they have no sense of their body, but that they have a sense of only aspects of it at any given time, which change constantly. For example, feeling only a part of it, part after part, on and off rapidly and unpredictably, and, seeing only a part of it in your visual field (either when the body is intentionally looked at, or just proceeding with daily activities during which, for normal people, there is an ongoing tactile and visual sense of their bodies (feeling and location), though this is not something anyone needs to be highly conscious of: they simply experience themselves in this way.
Tito has commented to Yoram Bonneh that he “stimms” to feel his body.
It would seem, then, that those with autism possibly do not have a normal cortical surface/topographicalrepresentation of their bodies as do normal people. And I wonder wbout the extent to which this can be learned by someone with autism, even if they fully understand the instruction being given.
For learning, in the sense of re-training what you believe about your body, as in your above case example, if this did not accord with the actual facts about yourself it would seem to be in a sense delusional, though helpful psychologically I suppose.
For those with autism/ASD, perhaps there could be progression on what they BELIEVE, but as for the experience of their bodies being located in space, feeling/sensing their bodies in a whole way and in an ongoing way (in contrast to what I mentioned above), etc, my impression is that this is another kind of problem that relies on the brain, and if the brain capacitie(s) are not there, or are being overriden by other things and as such not being utilized, then maybe the treatment would have to be different.
Even with ‘touch therapy’ with autism/ASD, during which the person is touched throughout the body and instruction is given about what the areas of the body are called, mean, and used for, and during which an experience is tried to be created where the autistic person sees where the touch is being made and tries to experience their body in space … my impression is that this is similar to, and not as effective as, the physical therapy for certain severely paralyzed individuals: the motions are being carried out for them, but nothing is occurring for them that increases any functioning or any abilities. For those with autism/ASD, though, my impression is that the dysfunction/limitation/deficit is not permanent – that nothing was destroyed – and that there is the possibility to improve this and other essentially identitical problems, but through a treatment that directly addresses and attacks their current brain activity.
It’s my impression that even in an experiment with ASD individuals with all the senses shut off from the outside world (dark room or blind fold, ear plugs, no tactile stimulation, etc) that they have an identitical problem with their internal (mind’s) representation of their bodies. Here they would simply be trying to conceive/imagine/picture their bodies located in space, and my impression is that they are profoundly limited in being able to do this fully.
As for what impact this body representation issue has on regular functioning, my impression is that the issue is not with the body itself, but rather with representation in general … all aspects of representation of the extermal world, and that this devastates all aspects of functioning (communicative, non-verbal, emotional, social, intra-personal, etc).
“Despite that I think, I still am not.”
There was a bestselling diet book, Think Your Way Thin.
Could it possibly be true?
Decartes “I think therefore I am”, a part of the statement of his existential theory (theory trying to address the question of how do we know we exist, what is to exist, etc). Thinking, in my view, is a very small aspect of existence, and less meaningful than the most important aspect, which I would say is the basic perceptual/non-verbal abilities, namely, for example, being able to visually and auditorily and tactily interpret things in the world in an automatic/non-conscious/non-reflective manner. For example, something many people have in common at all ages, from about 1yrs old onward, namely, sharing visual expression and contact of eye gaze with others … upon looking at someone being able to easily, naturally, effortlessley, unconsciously, unreflectively interpret their facial and eye expressions, then sharing a look of mutual aesthetic admiration, sustaining that shared look, communicating to one another that way. I don’t think there is any thought involved here, in the sense of Decartes’ cogito ergo sum … to me it seems like a primitive abilitity, in the sense that very young children onward can do this very well. A wonderful 2yr old girl sharing a long look with her father, they look at each other for 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 seconds, deeply appreciating what each other look like, aesthetic appreciation, sharing this look, expressing their gazes to one another equally.
It seems to me the above (primitive perceptual abilities) serve as the foundation for the development (or presence) of other abilities, namely the inter-personal and intra-personal abilities. They serve as the basis for how we interact with others, what we say and think during social interaction, what we think of ourselves and what we think during the non-social or intra-personal periods of our lives.
People are not the only things that can be the object of these perceptual abilities … anything in the environment can. Aesthetic appreciation for the external world is directed toward anything, and is demonstrated by simply looking at the environment in this way, with no effort, no thinking involved, etc. It consists of simply looing upon the world this way, and I tend to think that this by nature is not something that can be learned.
I’ve found it interesting and often sort of perplexing how people differ in the extent they acknowledge the physical environment around them, the way they look upon things, the amount of time they look at people, when they look at people, the quality of their looks, the differing abilities to receive looks from others, how they integrate all of this with communication. Some people seem to be engrossed in their thought and notice little of what is around them. I wonder what they see when they move around, such as down a hallway and by a lot of people … these people might look sort of firmly at a few people passing by, a kind of “light and quick stare”, and then move on, there is no shared aesthetic appreciation, even if one or more of the other people do in fact express a gaze of appreciation toward them … they don’t respond. It’s as if they aren’t as able to do this, and as an alternative, they direct more of their effort into thinking internally, and possibly they make an effort to further ignore the external environment due to how they, already, have a deficiency in appreciating it and being perceptually connected to it. In contrast, another person will share those long, direct exchanges of visual appreciation, during which they fully see the other person’s visually pleasant facial expression (not necessarily a smile, but rather just their look). I wonder if these people have less of a sort of withdrawn, deep thinking aspect, and I wonder what the value of this withdrawn aspect is. I’ve encountered many people who are in disciplines that are conducive to this withdrawn style. Interpersonally, they have a lot in common: looking at others is stressful often, tiring, demanding, challenging, not that enjoyable, but seeing their ideas in their minds, thinking, reflecting, looking away from the person they’re with and instead looking into their minds … these are what they “visually” appreciate … they look upon their thoughts in a way sort of similar to how other people look at people.
These seemingly very simple and automatic perceptual abilities have astounded me. It seems they are the foundation for our personalities, choices, relationships, courses of life, thought, etc.
One of the main treatment approaches for Aspergers and autism is to try to simulate these natural perceptual abilities. Many/most Aspergers’ people will look upon others as I mentioned above (the deficit of visual appreciation, etc). One approach is to instruct/teach them to (1) try to maintain looking at people rather than looking away as they would naturally do, and (2) to try to read/interpret other’s faces and eyes, and (3) try to respond with your own expression. A highly complicated process, for what is otherwise essentially automatic and natural (in the sense of not involving any thought, decision, etc). There is a great difference between these two ways of functioning. Put simply, the first is natural, the second is un-natural (contrived, scripted, etc) … like conducting your life by reading a script, where the script is what was instructed and learned, and which becomes a part of one’s memory as do scripts. I think this treatment is useful, to some extent, for non-personal contexts (business, etc), and also for personal relationships. But I wanted to note the great difference between these two, and also to express how much I’ve wondered about this.
It’s amazing how we think of things during a conversation with one or more people. We look at and hear others, and appreciate what they look like and the way they are expressing themselves, and we hear what is being said, and then we respond at certain times and at other times continue to listen, and we say certain things at various times, often with little thought involved.
So much of this what might be called high quality social and perceptual interaction seems to involve very little thought, in the sense of highly conscious, reflective thought.
It seems that those with autism/ASD are devoid in varying extents of these simple/primitive perceptual abililities, and this in turn has greatly impacted their personalities, communication, perceptual connection with the external environment, their internal thinking, etc.
There is seeing, and then their is seeing and enjoying what you see, but with no conscious effort. What is involved in this?
Some look at a work of art, a building, a sunset, the ocean, another person, a city street area, and THINK to themselves something like “wow this is beautiful, the aspects of these things are amazing”, and so on, but they actually may not be EXPERIENCING it as such. Here they are TRYING to do so, consciously, but they are not actually. And whether or not they are doing so is demonstrated by the WAY they look at these things. A firm, quick, blank look at these things, followed by withdrawing into the mind and reflecting on what was seen is not how these things are appreciated in the world, at the time we direct our senses toward them. Another person looks upon these things, and the experience of them as visually aesthetic is automatic, and demonstrated by the way they look at these things, not by their thought about these things. Yes we can share our appreciation with others, verbally, but what is most important is that firstly there was the natural perceptual appreciation
I remember a person who lived in an amazing cottage on a small lake in Upstate New York, just an amazing area. Like the movie On Golden Pond. She was quite a withdrawn person, often would talk out loud to herself even with others around, she often had little recognition of when others were around and seemed to sort of be in her own small space of a world, etc, things like this. In her house one day with her husband, she walked by the window when the sun was setting behind the other side of the lake and behind the trees, and looked in a quick glance and said “these sunsets are just amazing” and went about what she was doing. It was like she was following that three step process I mentioned above, and that while it was customary to say what she did, it seemed like she didn’t experience the sunset as amazing. Her husband in contrast looked at the sunset with a very different look, and said nothing, but he sustained his look, and it was the look that was different.
I think that the thinking aspect of our lives, while important and crucial, is less so compared to the simple perceptual abilities that don’t involve any thought or consciousness. I think these are the foundations of most everything else that is important, and that we are in a strong sense determined by the quality and extent of these simple abilities.
I think in an alternate way,
I exist in an alternate way.
I call my existence as ‘life’
Others describe it as ‘Autism’
Yet I am, Yet I stay,
Breathing my life –
My alternate way.
-
Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay
Tito,
I saw this comment at another area of this positscience site, a previous article.
24 May 2007 at 10:02 pm
Portia wrote:
“As you noted Tito was very hurt and angry that I described his autistic behavior so frankly – but if I did not, then there would be nothing remarkable about the fact that he has an amazing intellect, an intact emotional life and such a creative mind.â€
Tito’s problem is with the particular frank descriptions, and there could have been many other particular frank descriptions that could have been given with equal or much more power and explicitness to capture what was wanted to be captured. Some descriptions in “Strange Son†that Tito objects to:
On page 129:
‘When I left the apartment, When I left their apartment that day I felt as if I’d glimpsed into the mind of an alien being’.
What is the use/need for this? And, this is a distinctly unprofessional, uneducated observation, as are most of the below quotes. Things can be described with great power in more educated, clear, and specific ways, and these ways show basic respect for the person as well, which the above observation does not. As well, this observation shows that there is actually an alien unfamilarity with autism … ignorance and unfamiliarity with the condition, variations of it, different intensities of it, etc.
On page 116:
“‘Tired’ was hardly an apt explanation for the extraordinary scene we had been witnessing … where food was flying in every direction, accompanied by his odd grimacing sounds…â€
This is disrespectful. This shows again what I mentioned above.
Page 117:
“I emailed Tito that same night and asked him why he behaved like that at the table, grabbing food and acting like a wild beast …â€;
Distinctly disrespectful, and, an uneducated way of describing behavior that can be described in a multitude of other ways that are equally or more effective in terms of being vivid, clear, powerful, emotional, etc. Metaphorical descriptions like this are not useful, and disrespectful. Shows an alien unfamiliarity with the different presentations of autism.
Page 126:
“He dashed through the house and raced toward the fridge, the first stop on the terrible circuit he could not break free of. He flung open the refrigerator door and wildly rifled through its contents… `You’ll never get a publisher with this kind of behavior!’ I commented in a low voiceâ€;
This shows the authors lack of patience, lack of understanding, lack of empathy to those who suffer like Tito with these horrible symptoms.
Page 127:
“Now it seemed as if Tito were possessed by a demon.â€;
See my many comments above.
In short, the author seems ill-equipped to deal with observing Tito in an intelligent, constructive, useful way. The crude descriptions are short cuts, based on ignorance, based on the lack of capacity to make more sympathetic, educated, clear, complete, and powerful descriptions. It’s easy to make these short statements and use these intellectually poor terms to capture the audience of the book. It’s harder to use intelligence, empathy, thought, care, to describe things in another way — it takes more time, stronger observational skills, and above all more empathy.
I wonder if Tito was provided a draft of the book prior to printing, or if he was provided drafts as the book moved along in development. I highly doubt it. Maybe the author could have worked more with Tito and Soma (his mother) for the purpose of having them clear on what was being written about Tito, to ask for his input as the author moved along, to let him request revisions, let him make any objections to anything, etc. It is unacceptable for an author to take the base material, taken from the clients willingness to take part, and then run with it and keep the client in the dark.
Dear July,
I love this month because I was born on this month.
As to the answer to your question, ‘No, I was not. When the draft was provided, it was too late, a week before the book was out.’
I was really hurt because those above described words came as a shock.
Thanks for understanding.
-
Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay
I read a fascinating description at the end of a book on Special Relativity by the late physicist David Bohm which implied that all the perception of external objects is really done by the mind in a very deep sense. That is, there is a very direct connection between the observer and what the observer sees. This implies that from the individual’s perspective, it’s not like there’s an individual person and a separate world around them – the two are dependent!