Study of Babies’ Brain Scans Sheds New Light on the Brain’s Unconscious Activity and How It Develops

[Elmore Furth]

Some aspects may have been built in, after all. In the nature versus nurture argument, it appears that nature may be winning out.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2010) — Full-term babies are born with a key collection of networks already formed in their brains, according to new research that challenges some previous theories about the brain's activity and how the brain develops.

Resting state networks are connected systems of neurons in the brain that are constantly active, even when a person is not focusing on a particular task, or during sleep. The researchers found that these networks were at an adult-equivalent level by the time the babies reached the normal time of birth.

One particular resting state network identified in the babies, called the default mode network, has been thought to be involved in introspection and daydreaming. MRI scans have shown that the default mode network is highly active if a person is not carrying out a defined task, but is much less active while consciously performing tasks.

"Our study shows that babies' brains are more fully formed than we thought. More generally, we sometimes expect to be able to explain the activity we can see on brain scans terms of someone thinking or doing some task. However, most of the brain is probably engaged in activities of which we are completely unaware, and it is this complex background activity that we are detecting."


Study of Babies’ Brain Scans Sheds New Light on the Brain’s Unconscious Activity and How It Develops

[Beetwasher]

1. Fetal Impressions Are Imprinted On Our Brains And Form Basic Cognitive Templates

That shape our emotional reactions to various events/situations.

[Yrger]

2. We must be specific on what is unconscious in human phenomena.

We must be specific on what is unconscious in human phenomena.


Philosophy Dictionary on the Unconscious

The idea that the brain is constantly processing information of which we remain unaware is widely attested in the brain and behavioural sciences (see blindsight). It is also widely agreed that people may have beliefs and desires that they cannot represent to themselves without processes of assistance. The methodological problem that such processes face is to distinguish between uncovering genuine unconscious beliefs and desires, and gratuitously reading them into a subject's behaviour. More detailed theories of the form such assistance should take, and of the lurid content unconscious beliefs and desires are often supposed to possess, are controversial. See Freud, psychoanalysis.

See here.



Otherwise, like chance in pseudo-science writings, we produce pseudo-explanations for everything that begs explanation in the unwelcome paths.

For example, paranormal occurrences from human agency are conveniently attributed to the socalled ideomotor effect which is conveniently founded upon the unconscious mind.




Yrger