Hercule Poirot and the unquiet brain
1
302 http://neurology.thelancet.com Vol 6 April 2007 In Context Books Hercule Poirot and the unquiet brain “Have you ever noticed how wonderful a baby’s head smells?” asks Louis Cozolino. Indeed! And it is hard not to cheer the author of a neuroscience text who is able to permit himself such responses. But then Cozolino is a clinical psychologist rather than a neuroscientist, and his book is an attempt to relate knowledge of brain function to the study and treatment of clinical states such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, and psychopathy. His perspective is clear from the title and opening pages. Traditional neuroscience is reductive and individualising, treating brains practically in isolation from bodies, let alone the outside world. But, he emphasises: “The individual neuron or a single human brain does not exist in nature. Without mutually stimulating interactions, people and neurons wither and die.” He is of course exactly right, and although psychologists are unlikely to ignore this, neuroscientists all too frequently still do. His emphasis on development, on brain plasticity, and the construction of both brains and minds through social interaction, especially with carers in childhood, is key to the emergence of a new field of research—social neuroscience. Neuroscientists have long spoken of experience-dependent plasticity, of which learning and memory formation are special cases. But such “experience” is, at least in experimental situations, usually of the inanimate world. What social neuroscience in general, and Cozolino in particular remind us , is that humans are above all social animals, and the most important parts of our experience are indeed other people. Our brains respond in both learned and unlearned ways to others, from their pheromones to their facial expressions. “Mirror neurons” in our own (and other primate’s) brains fire in response to observing another’s actions or emotions almost as they do when we ourselves act or emote. We recognise other humans as having minds and agency—if we don’t, we are called autistic. Cozolino sees his task as of exploring these relationships, of describing the brain systems associated with particular types and problems of social relationship. Chapter by chapter, the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the amygdala, and other brain regions take their bow in his story of social functions. So, sharing as I do his perspective, I ought to be cheering this book on. However, I read on with growing unease clouding my initial enthusiasm. I was not helped by the book’s irritating style, tailored as it is to a particular type of American audience. This requires that each chapter, treating a specific brain system or process, features a little vignette of one of Cozolino’s (real or fictitious, it is never made clear) patients coming to him with particular psychological or psychiatric problems, which he solves by a mixture of therapeutic imagination plus explaining to the patient which bit of their brain has gone awry, after which, it seems they depart happy ever after. The author’s self-image seems to be that of a psychotherapeutic Hercule Poirot. More troubling though is the simplistic attempt to draw over-facile analogies between neural and social processes. Thus programmed cell death in neurons, apoptosis, is said to be analogous to depression in humans. The synaptic cleft between neurons is analogous to the “social synapse” between people. All this is coupled with a glib evocation of “evolution” as if the term alone is enough to resolve any problem. The muddle is made worse because he is never clear whether he is making an educationally provocative analogy or describing a real mechanism. Perhaps as a psychologist in deference to the apparent “hardness” of neuroscience, he overstates the extent of knowledge of just which brain systems are engaged in which mental and emotional processes, so that his account becomes a modern version of phrenology. And although he has a reasonable grasp of systems-level neuroscience, when it comes to the more cellular and molecular levels he flounders. What are we to make, for instance, of the baldly stated claim that “transcription genes” control experience- dependent aspects of brain structure and account for 70% of the brain’s postnatal structure? It is not clear to whom this book is addressed. With more than 60 pages of references, it is scarcely a trade book. Neuroscience students, if they ever read anything other than prescribed texts, will find it usefully raises their gaze from the frontiers of knowledge across which they are normally expected to crawl. Psychology students will find the descriptions of neural processes and brain systems interesting but may well find themselves misled by the apparent certainties Cozolino offers. I’m aware this is a hard critique, but the author’s goals are so important, and his intentions so obviously sound, that it becomes doubly important to get it right. Steven Rose [email protected] The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: attachment and the developing social brain. Louis Cozolino, Norton, 447pp, US$35 ISBN 13: 978-0-393-70454-9
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Transcript of Hercule Poirot and the unquiet brain
302 http://neurology.thelancet.com Vol 6 April 2007
In Context
BooksHercule Poirot and the unquiet brain“Have you ever noticed how wonderful a baby’s head smells?” asks Louis Cozolino. Indeed! And it is hard not to cheer the author of a neuroscience text who is able to permit himself such responses. But then Cozolino is a clinical psychologist rather than a neuroscientist, and his book is an attempt to relate knowledge of brain function to the study and treatment of clinical states such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, and psychopathy. His perspective is clear from the title and opening pages. Traditional neuroscience is reductive and individualising, treating brains practically in isolation from bodies, let alone the outside world. But, he emphasises: “The individual neuron or a single human brain does not exist in nature. Without mutually stimulating interactions, people and neurons wither and die.”
He is of course exactly right, and although psychologists are unlikely to ignore this, neuroscientists all too frequently still do. His emphasis on development, on brain plasticity, and the construction of both brains and minds through social interaction, especially with carers in childhood, is key to the emergence of a new fi eld of research—social neuroscience. Neuroscientists have long spoken of experience-dependent plasticity, of which learning and memory formation are special cases. But such “experience” is, at least in experimental situations, usually of the inanimate world. What social neuroscience in general, and Cozolino in particular remind us , is that humans are above all social animals, and the most important parts of our experience are indeed other people. Our brains respond in both learned and unlearned ways to others, from their pheromones to their facial expressions. “Mirror neurons” in our own (and other primate’s) brains fi re in response to observing another’s actions or emotions almost as they do when we ourselves act or emote. We recognise other humans as having minds and agency—if we don’t, we are called autistic. Cozolino sees his task as of exploring these relationships, of describing the brain systems associated with particular types and problems of social relationship. Chapter by chapter, the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the amygdala, and other brain regions take their bow in his story of social functions.
So, sharing as I do his perspective, I ought to be cheering this book on. However, I read on with growing unease clouding my initial enthusiasm. I was not helped by the book’s irritating style, tailored as it is to a particular type
of American audience. This requires that each chapter, treating a specifi c brain system or process, features a little vignette of one of Cozolino’s (real or fi ctitious, it is never made clear) patients coming to him with particular psychological or psychiatric problems, which he solves by a mixture of therapeutic imagination plus explaining to the patient which bit of their brain has gone awry, after which, it seems they depart happy ever after. The author’s self-image seems to be that of a psychotherapeutic Hercule Poirot.
More troubling though is the simplistic attempt to draw over-facile analogies between neural and social processes. Thus programmed cell death in neurons, apoptosis, is said to be analogous to depression in humans. The synaptic cleft between neurons is analogous to the “social synapse” between people. All this is coupled with a glib evocation of “evolution” as if the term alone is enough to resolve any problem. The muddle is made worse because he is never clear whether he is making an educationally provocative analogy or describing a real mechanism. Perhaps as a psychologist in deference to the apparent “hardness” of neuroscience, he overstates the extent of knowledge of just which brain systems are engaged in which mental and emotional processes, so that his account becomes a modern version of phrenology. And although he has a reasonable grasp of systems-level neuroscience, when it comes to the more cellular and molecular levels he fl ounders. What are we to make, for instance, of the baldly stated claim that “transcription genes” control experience-dependent aspects of brain structure and account for 70% of the brain’s postnatal structure?
It is not clear to whom this book is addressed. With more than 60 pages of references, it is scarcely a trade book. Neuroscience students, if they ever read anything other than prescribed texts, will fi nd it usefully raises their gaze from the frontiers of knowledge across which they are normally expected to crawl. Psychology students will fi nd the descriptions of neural processes and brain systems interesting but may well fi nd themselves misled by the apparent certainties Cozolino off ers. I’m aware this is a hard critique, but the author’s goals are so important, and his intentions so obviously sound, that it becomes doubly important to get it right.
Steven [email protected]
The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: attachment and
the developing social brain.Louis Cozolino, Norton, 447pp,
US$35 ISBN 13: 978-0-393-70454-9
