Culmination of the reading from past days of reading — Chapter 6 to Chapter 11

Chapter 6 — Focussed on people who were not able to see left side of their vision

• There were some interesting cases where a woman has put makeup on her right side and keeping things as it is on the left, but claiming that she looks perfect
  • For some of them they feel that their left side doesnt even exist (even tho it is paralyzed, they cant even imagine it)`.
  • This was only happening when the left side was still, if there is a movement she was able to grasp that and notice the thing to her right
• The reason for this ignorance of left side the injury in the right parietal lobe (ig coz of the alternate rewiring in brain from the previous chapter)
  • But there is a twist, if left parietal lobe is damaged they are still able to see things in the right
  • Because right parietal lobe is a “global” sensory processor, which on damage breaks the connection to left and right visual fields. But people can still see right side — since left parietal lobe is intact and only wires right side
• Author even tried the mirror experiment for the patients, and when they were shown a pen in the on mirror such that it felt it is on the left side — a normal human wld have understood its a reflection and grabbed the pen — but for his surprise the woman was hitting the mirror to get inside it and grab the pen
  • Even on confrontation, she said that the pen is behind the mirror and she cant grab it.

Chapter 7 - Continuation from previous chapter but digs deep into the reason why the patients deny that their body is not paralyzed

• Where a person claims their left hand is intact even tho the entire left-side was paralyzed from an accident
  • Even claimed to clap — while he was just moving his one hand in clapping motion, for him he saw him as clapping but in reality it was just one hand moving
• With few other patients he comes across uncanny reasons when asked whose arm is lying next to you — “it is my brother’s arm” — just to deny the fact of it being paralyzed
• Anosognsia — mental condition where people are unaware of their own illness, can be viewed in 2 ways
  • Freudian view — where the patients ego doesnt allow them to confront the truth that they are ill
  • Neurological view — from previous chapter where they cant see the left side of their body
• The Freudian view fails to explain —
  • magnitude of lie, some people were aware that their arm is not completely well when asked for a heavy task (in reality their arm was paralyzed)
  • only people with right hemisphere damage experience denial, and not vice versa
• Neurological view denies Freudian view but again it has its flaws —
  • Some patients with neglect do no experience denial, and vice versa
  • Why patients still deny when their attention is drawn towards paralysis
• The author suggests the key answer to this lies in how our brain is structured
  • The two halves are identical like walnut
  • The left half does language but also the structural and syntactical part of it, while the right does parts like poems, rhythms metaphors, elementary skills in general
    • And left hemisphere is dominant because of the language part
• In quite an interesting way, and it is fascinating how the brain functions like a roleplay
  • Every second we are bombarded with a lot of information, from all over place, but we only keep a few which are important, and discard others
    • And this filter mostly happens from our belief system
  • The role of left hemisphere is to process that information and match it with our belief system and based on the information either ignore or fit that into our current belief system, basically maintaining stabilty in one’s belief
    • He explained it beautifully using the army general in war example
  • Now this can be bad, since not everything we see we shld belief, so when a information is too radical or dangerous, the right hemisphere plays the “Devil’s Advocate” role (opposing ones opinion), this makes sure that we are rational with the information we take in the belief system, and tweak it as needed
    • Now guess what happens when that part of right hemisphere is damaged, the person loses the ability to oppose/question and goes in full denial mode to protect their belief system — ie that their left hand is still intact, and i will deny that it is broken whatever happens, just to serve my ego and not show that i am physically weak.
      • Which goes hand in hand with the Freudian view of answering it
  • There was an experiment where they were able to make a patient realise that their arm was paralyzed, by putting cold water on left ear canal (or warm water on right ear), which activated the right hemisphere somehow.
    • But after a few hours they started denying the fact that they ever realised it
  • The water in the canal method is to create rapid eye movements (REM), which usually happens 25% of the time when we sleep, this creates all those weird dreams and surfaces some forbidden memories which were maybe being surpressed — most of it is discarded, maybe thats why we dont remember our dreams?
  • Also he was able to make a patient realize about their paralyzed arm by mocking an injection, which again they denied after few hours
• The freudian behaviour can happen in healthy patients as well, most of the times we deny or repress things just to keep our self-esteem, while deep-down we know the reality
  • One can do this in multiple ways
    • Form various reactions to overexaggerate things — i can lift it an inch higher with my left hand
    • Trying to be rational — i have knee pain so i can move my left leg
    • Humor — Can you move your hand? — “No, I am not accustomed to taking orders”
    • Projection — This paralyzed arm belongs to my brother

Chapter 8 — Son claiming that his parents are not his parents after an accident

• This is quite interesting one, coz he was able to recognize everyone else even his old friends, and other relatives, just the fact that he felt that his parents are not his parents and are impostors
  • But he considers them as parents when he talks over telephone
• The reason for this to happen is “Capygras’ syndrome” — where the person is in some kind of delusion
  • When we see someone close to us, whom we love, our body sends some sort of an electric signal which gives us that feeling of closed-ness, which is natural in all humans
  • The patient suffering this syndrome doesnt get that signals, so basically even tho he is seeing is parents, since he is not feeling it, he denys that they are is parents because he cant experience the closed-ness