Maximizing Utility and the Brain: Cash or Status?

Scientific American has an article regarding a study of the brain that indicates the brain places a high value on money, but a higher value on social status. From the article:

"Our study shows that both behaviorally and in the brain, people place an importance on social status," says Caroline Zink, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md., and co-author of one of studies. "It's hugely influential even [when we're not] in direct competition with someone else."

Zen and the Art of Brain Maintenance

It seems, much of the time, that not more than a few hours, days, or (for the lucky ones amongst us) weeks can pass by without facing a difficult problem. While some people have developed methods for confronting such problems, scientists have decided to tackle the subject to determine the mechanics that take place behind such decisions.

Their hopes and definition of the issue at hand:

“’This insight is at the core of human intelligence … this is a key cognitive function that the human can boast to have,’ says Joydeep Bhattacharya, an assistant professor in Goldsmiths's psychology department. "We're interested [in finding out] whether—there is a sudden change that takes place or something that changes gradually [that] we're not consciously aware of," he says. The researchers believed they could pin down brain signals that would enable them to predict whether a person could solve a particular problem or not.”

The findings shed some light on human thought processes: Once at a mental impasses, subjects experienced strong gamma rhythms, patterns of brain wave activity which has previously been associated with selective attention, in the parietal cortex—think upper rear of the brain, responsible for integrating information obtained from sensory input. When offered clues in this particular increased gamma-rhythmic state, subjects were less likely to gain insight on getting past their impasses.

“If there’s excessive attention, it somehow creates mental fixation,” Dr. Bhattacharya notes: “Your brain is not in a receptive condition.”

When patients did not consciously monitor their thinking about a particular subject, they had their “eureka!” moments: The researchers likened it to an experience of emotional relief. Application of conscious information processing by the brain was associated with alpha waves—which have been previously associated with a relaxed and open mind. It has been shown that volunteers who were more apt to unwittingly solve problems exhibited more robust alpha rhythms as opposed to those who had to knowingly adjust their thinking to come up with the answer. In other words, the findings indicated that it is better to confront issues with an open mind rather than concentrating too much on them.

For a moment, let’s explore the larger network that the implications of these findings fit into. Research has shown that sleeping on a difficult issue is conducive to helping solve that issue, for instance. Just like any other muscle, the brain can be configured to have perspective to solve problems from a general sense, it can be trained to solve a specific set of problems, or it can be manipulated in the moment to work on a problem. My classic approach to solving a problem is that I prefer to take the tactful, graceful approach first; if that fails, then I will be apt to use a brute force approach. This particular philosophy fits in with the above, as grace employs techniques which are more concise, sophisticated, and even “Zen-like” in a sense, as opposed to the brute force approach where instead of coaxing a situation to become more to your satisfaction, you utilize more forceful techniques to control the situation to your satisfaction.

The solution for tough problems is simple, then: Either brute force your way through the toughness of the issue at hand…or use the smarter approach and walk away from the situation for a while. The alternative is to “train your brain” to have the perspective that is conducive to resolving these sorts of issues more quickly—by conditioning it to be more of a generalist than being focused on a specific manner of thinking.

The Emergence of Context

Try to get a kid to eat their green vegetables. Being the rational adult that we are we attempt explaining to the youth why eating their vegetables, drinking their milk, not doing drugs or smoking, or staying in school are such good things to do because they all factor into the context of how their future will play out. Don’t stay in school, for instance, and you will have limitations placed onto your for how you to succeed in the world; do drugs and things get worse. Life is tough enough; it only gets worse when someone stacks the odds against themselves.

A recent study of the brains of children shows a stark contrast in the biology—and through that, its mechanics—between the younger brain, the older brain, and the points in between. While the human brain physically grows to full size (but not volume) by the time a person is six years old, it does not finish developing until early adulthood. The examples of context and long-term thinking show that children are not apt to have the mental traits of grown-ups. They may not be able to recall context with such great ease, but they do have the ability to recall discrete facts with better ease.

Gray matter grows, flourishes, and neurons—brain cells—develop sheaths of fatty materials on their ends as the brain matures. This biological process forms the basis for growing from individuals of finite facts to people of great associations of context:

“But as people grow, their brains change. Before full volume is attained, the pruning starts. Grey matter gets picked away at different rates in different parts of the organ. Brain cells form white matter as their arms become covered in fatty sheaths that, like the plastic insulation around a metal wire, stop electrical signals leaking out as they zip along the nerve cells. As the grey matter diminishes, the white matter steadily increases. Which is why the brain can mature from an organ of overwhelmingly short-range connections into one with many long-distance links, as Bradley Schlaggar and his colleagues at Washington University, in St Louis, have found.”

Essentially, this process creates the basis for two separate networks—instead of two physical parts of the brain—which develop to be able to simultaneously work out the challenges we face in our everyday lives. Through the use of a technique called graph theory—a versatile tool to measure everything from neural activity to power grid usage—researchers were able to map with some success how these networks act on their own and in coordination with one another. It also offers insight to the notion that adults can better resist impulses in order to focus on long-term goals.

In the end, however, all this winds up summarizing a conclusion that has been in the annals of wisdom for quite some time: The brain is a muscle, like any other. While it will grow and mature over time, how we use it over any given time will help to develop it—or foment an environment in which it is less likely to develop—no matter which decade of age in which we find ourselves.