Scientists unveil the brain's CEO-Mumbai-Cities-The Times of India
MUMBAI: Why do some people who are truly smart and talented still struggle and flail through life like headless chickens?
Why do they act as though they lack the rudimentary ability to plan and organise their time and space, to initiate and execute projects to fruition?
And, like monkeys tearing down banana blossoms in favour of more substantive but late-arriving bonanzas, why do such people also have such a hard time resisting the temptation of more immediate gratifications?
Recent research suggests that rather than being wilful or perverse, many of these puzzling underachievers may actually be suffering from neurological abnormalities involving the brain's CEO - a control centre that is really an array of executive functions that orchestrate resources such as memory, language and attention to achieve a goal, be it a fraction of a second or five years from now.
Executive functions enable you to hold on to a mental image of destination.
A deficiency in this crucial area could make the person "future-blind", researchers say.
This was dramatically highlighted in the celebrated case of Phineas Gage, an upwardly railroad contractor, otherwise a Victorian model of rectitude and diligence who turned into an aimless drifter and cussed sociopath after surviving grievous brain injury in a freak accident.
Noted neurologist Antonio Damasio examined Gage's case in ‘Descartes Error', his best-selling synthesis of emotion and reason.
He and his wife Hanna have studied patients with similar front-lobe damage that similarly devastating impact which leaves IQ, memory and language intact but with a profound lack of feeling and an inability to put current events in context and make judgments about the future.
Leading to a short term orientation. Short term pleasures over longer term investments. Also, minor events have a much larger emotional impact than you would guess, but dissapate quickly as well. So something bad happens, and you are thrown into misery. The next day you feel fine again, whereas traditional depression lingers for months and months.
MUMBAI: Why do some people who are truly smart and talented still struggle and flail through life like headless chickens?
Why do they act as though they lack the rudimentary ability to plan and organise their time and space, to initiate and execute projects to fruition?
And, like monkeys tearing down banana blossoms in favour of more substantive but late-arriving bonanzas, why do such people also have such a hard time resisting the temptation of more immediate gratifications?
Recent research suggests that rather than being wilful or perverse, many of these puzzling underachievers may actually be suffering from neurological abnormalities involving the brain's CEO - a control centre that is really an array of executive functions that orchestrate resources such as memory, language and attention to achieve a goal, be it a fraction of a second or five years from now.
Executive functions enable you to hold on to a mental image of destination.
A deficiency in this crucial area could make the person "future-blind", researchers say.
This was dramatically highlighted in the celebrated case of Phineas Gage, an upwardly railroad contractor, otherwise a Victorian model of rectitude and diligence who turned into an aimless drifter and cussed sociopath after surviving grievous brain injury in a freak accident.
Noted neurologist Antonio Damasio examined Gage's case in ‘Descartes Error', his best-selling synthesis of emotion and reason.
He and his wife Hanna have studied patients with similar front-lobe damage that similarly devastating impact which leaves IQ, memory and language intact but with a profound lack of feeling and an inability to put current events in context and make judgments about the future.
Leading to a short term orientation. Short term pleasures over longer term investments. Also, minor events have a much larger emotional impact than you would guess, but dissapate quickly as well. So something bad happens, and you are thrown into misery. The next day you feel fine again, whereas traditional depression lingers for months and months.
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