{"id":3953,"date":"2012-03-07T12:26:18","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T16:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/ombs\/?p=3953"},"modified":"2012-03-07T12:26:18","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T16:26:18","slug":"neurobabble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/2012\/03\/07\/neurobabble\/","title":{"rendered":"Neurobabble"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"st_twitter_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_facebook_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_ybuzz_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_gbuzz_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_email_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_sharethis_large\"><\/span><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/w.sharethis.com\/button\/buttons.js\"><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\">stLight.options({publisher:'0b9142ea-42f7-4b62-947d-dd7654ef4f2d'});<\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3954\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3954\" style=\"width: 263px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3954\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2012\/02\/l33d8bf900000_2_4701.jpg\" alt=\"Are there REALLY parts of the brain dedicated to categories of thoughts like some reports say? \" width=\"253\" height=\"344\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3954\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Are there REALLY parts of the brain dedicated to categories of thoughts like some reports say? <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The field of neuroscience has undoubtedly expanded over the past two decades, and the explosion of all this cutting-edge discovery has inevitably lead to its proliferation in our culture. However, the spread of interest to the general population has begun to instigate the problematic phenomenon of what some scientists deem \u201c<em>neurobabble<\/em>\u201d. It refers to the overly simplified and misinterpreted information that many contemporary writers use to appeal to the public. Neurobabble in recent pop-science books and articles often engenders false conclusions and denies proper understanding about how the brain really works. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Society\u2019s absorption of this \u2018neurobabble\u2019 has somewhat elevated the brain into a cultish status, mythologizing its functions and romanticizing the promise of research applications. Anyone could walk into a bookstore now and come across a magazine article exhibiting vibrantly colored images of brain scans coupled with a beguiling title such as \u201cThe Part of The Brain Responsible for Being in Love!\u201d It\u2019s the kind of phrase that fools people into thinking a psychological event can be equivalently replaced by a biological one. And it attracts many of us because it appears to offer explanatory answers to the questions we really care about. But to believe that something as ambiguous and abstract as love can be simply defined as a localized function is not only flawed reasoning, but utterly unsupported by the neuroscientific evidence of the brain as an extremely interconnected and dynamic network.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3955\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2012\/02\/mrifig1x.jpg\" alt=\"mrifig1x\" width=\"277\" height=\"316\" \/>The media is particularly fond of fMRI studies because the visual aspect seems to make the claims of neurobabble more persuasive. One fallacy people unfamiliar with neuroscience are apt to assume is that the particular part of the brain that \u201clights up\u201d in the MRI\u00a0 scanner is accountable for the behavior, emotion, etc. of the person inside. But the machines aren\u2019t directly measuring any real-time, chemical or electrical neural activity; rather, they measure changes in oxygen content in blood. The more neurons fire, the more O2 is used. So activity in the area is being measured, but there\u2019s always \u2018background noise\u2019.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Imagine a scenario in which two different men volunteer for an experiment in which they both view pictures of their wives in an fMRI, and those conducting the study look at the areas thought to be involved in \u2018empathy\u2019 or \u2018love\u2019 based on previous research. Firstly, all brains are unique. There is a lot of variation in background brain activity, including how susceptible neural patterns can be to experimental conditions. Inside an enormous, loud, hollow machine certainly isn\u2019t a natural environment. So can we really <em>conclude<\/em> that one man loves his wife more than the other because of the results?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Because of the rich technical and conceptual sophistication involved in the questions we really want answered, it\u2019s tempting even for specialists to make overstatements and say things that make no sense. David Eagleman (a neuroscientist at the Baylor college of Medicine) had said in his book \u201cIncognitio: The Secret Lives of The Brain\u201d that neuroimaging scans may someday be used to identify those with the potential to commit crime. He goes as far to say that (quite Orwellian-ly) \u201csome people will need to be taken off the streets on the basis of their fMRIs\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3961\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3961\" style=\"width: 176px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3961 \" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2012\/02\/Neuro-Gasm-reviews.png\" alt=\"pop culture seriously twisting neuroscience\" width=\"166\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2012\/02\/Neuro-Gasm-reviews.png 227w, https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2012\/02\/Neuro-Gasm-reviews-151x300.png 151w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 166px) 100vw, 166px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3961\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pop culture loves twisting neuroscience!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">A pod cast by Rationally Speaking &amp; NYC Skeptics used a metaphor to depict the manner of how the brain works and shed light on the neurobabble issue:<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><em>Suppose you were running a desktop computer and you were observing which components of the hardware were active when a procedure (we\u2019ll call it Graphics Displays) was carried out. You notice one part of the computer is active when graphics are displayed, but when that active part is taken out, they cannot be displayed. So you assume THAT component causes the display. But\u2026 it could be that the graphics are run by another component, but the process of graphics display is so energy intensive that it produces an amount of heat that activates the computer\u2019s cooling device, always active during graphics. So that initial component could actually be for regulating the machine\u2019s temperature, and some automatic safeguards recognized its absence, preventing graphics displays.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><br \/>\nThe moral of the metaph<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000\">or is that correlation never implies causation. As a neuroscience student myself, I\u2019ll urge you to be wary of bad claims. Ask yourself questions when you come across them.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a reliable method: Assume the brain is the most complex object in the entire universe. If a claim about it sounds too simple to be true, then it probably is!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Luigi Anzivino: Science of Magic\" href=\"http:\/\/today.ucla.edu\/portal\/ut\/neurobabble-obscures-the-deeper-189981.aspx\">Neurobabble obscures deeper significance of brain science<\/a> &#8211; UCLA Today<br \/>\n<a title=\"Luigi Anzivino: Science of Magic\" href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/health_and_science\/the_spectator\/2011\/09\/does_evil_exist_neuroscientists_say_no_.single.html\">The End of Evil?<br \/>\nNeuroscientists suggest there is no such thing. Are they right?<\/a> &#8211; Slate<br \/>\n<a title=\"Luigi Anzivino: Science of Magic\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org\/show\/rs50-neurobabble.html\">Neurobabble<\/a> &#8211; Rationally Speaking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The field of neuroscience has undoubtedly expanded over the past two decades, and the explosion of all this cutting-edge discovery has inevitably lead to its proliferation in our culture. However, the spread of interest to the general population has begun to instigate the problematic phenomenon of what some scientists deem \u201cneurobabble\u201d. It refers to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7099,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[589,591],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7099"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}