Conclusion (Diagnosis)
of Conditioned Response
Consider the hypothetical in the Alzheimer’s scam report:
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A hypothetical court (or tribunal situation) which
ought to demonstrate that trying to explain basic medicine or common
sense to such people (lawyers, judges, or similar) can be like hitting
a brick wall.
Yours truly: May I approach the bench? Now, let me
get this straight. Some court or tribunal had defined a legal precedent
which says that a person has different capacities and therefore it
follows they also have testament capacity? Certainly, when of sound
mind. But we are talking about a person with Alzheimer’s. She can not
read past a first paragraph of a book. She is taken to the local shops
and she thinks she is back in Russia. Sure, she can still recall the names
of her children, not such a problem for her – that tiny area of the brain
that remembers names has not been damaged and this is not a problem for
her- but trying to recall where she was taken for her birthday two days
ago and by whom is impossible for her. Testament capacity? Any lesion
to the brain has the potential to destroy testament capacity relative
to a sound mind.
Judge: No, you don’t understand. The legal definition
of testament capacity just means a person still recalls their children.
That is what is required to be shown in a court.
Yours truly: So this person sitting there, who does
not where she is, or what she is doing here, has the legal right
to sign a new Power of Attorney and Last Will and Testament even
though she has no concept of what she is signing or why?
Judge: As long as a medical specialist testifies under
oath that she has testament capacity.
Your truly. Meaning that she recalls the names of her
siblings?
Judge: Correct.
Yours truly: Why do you need a medical specialist?
Why not ask family members?
Judge: No, it has to be a person who is an expert witness
to the court.
Yours truly: An expert witness on what? No psychiatrist
in his right mind would suggest such a thing.
Judge: No, we don’t ask psychiatrists, they don’t cooperate
with us. Hospital geriatric specialists cooperate with us.
Yours truly: Is this for real? Or is this an episode
of Seinfeld and a bizarre topsy turvy world of some kind? Could
you tell me what your definition of a paraplegic is? Do you perhaps
have a definition for cardiac arrest? If so, you obviously would not
ask a cardiac surgeon to write a report, which medical speciality do you
ask to produce such a report?
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To an ordinary intelligent person this may sound like
madness. But is it insanity by our definition? (i.e. loss of reality
or loss of perspective on reality – note this refers to self, not
to how others perceive or understand reality).
The answer is no. The judge in this hypothetical is
using a preconditioned response. His state of mind and his ego cooperate
to ensure his ability to use his legal deliberation technique is
not damaged. While his intellect may appreciate the “unreality”, the
intellect on its own has limited capacity to change the ego or state
of mind. In perhaps 95% of situations, his ego and state of mind serve
him well to come to correct and proper decisions – but in the 5% of
cases the ego knows something is not right but that does not matter,
not important, the ego is set to protect the state of mind for the benefit
of the 95% of decisions.
What if this hypothetical judge comes to a psychiatrist
and asks to be helped to understand why he fails to understand some
situations?
The skill required is on par with a cardiac surgeon.
The psychiatrist needs to assist the ego to understand the 5% of
the situations, but in such a way that the state of mind or the ego
is not damaged. One possible approach is to appeal to the modified
ego. Any person who can sign court orders has a modified ego (refer
glossary for definition). Such may not be used for anything other than
to contain within itself the truth that by signing a court order, a
judge modifies reality for some people. A modified ego is part of the
intellect. The intellect can be reasoned with – the question is how?
A truly passive modified ego, one that simply contains the truth that
the ego shapes reality by signing court orders or making legal decisions,
does not have much of an interest in anything else. However, just like
any other larger area of the brain or activity area, it is a small consciousness
in its own right. If this consciousness comes to like you, and exposes
itself, it may accept your suggestion that it would be nice for the ego
if the modified ego assisted the ego to understand certain situations.
If we can do that, then we win, because the modified ego will find a technique
to do this.
My suggestion, if you are a psychiatrist in that position,
is form a quick assessment of whether the patient likes you or
not. We all have different personalities. We are all different.
Not everyone likes everyone else and the reason for this is impossible
to be clear about, it is just the way people are. So, if you suspect
the person does not like you, that you are not his or her type, suggest
another psychiatrist. If you are a lady psychiatrist, consider the
choice of clothes when with the patient. In some outfits, for who knows
what reason, the modified ego may respond better and even expose itself.
All we need, in this scenario, if the theory is spot on, for the modified
ego to expose itself and then be explained what the patient would like.
The modified ego will do this, if it likes you and accepts your reasons.
The modified ego will find a way – this may take up to 9 months, connections
in the brain may need to be put in place first before that which is desired
is possible. When a modified ego performs this type of brain surgery, it
will make sure all the fine tuning is in place, all the dendrites are
connected as they have to be, in order to achieve the objective.
Here is an extract from the book Research-Based Strategies
to Ignite Student Learning by Judy Willis
Learning causes growth of brain cells. Now we know
that although most of the neurons where information is stored are
present at birth, there is lifelong growth of the support and connecting
cells that enrich the communication between neurons. These dendrites
sprout from the arms (axons) or the cell body of the neuron.
Dendrites increase in size and number in response to
learned skills, experience, and information. New dendrites grow
as branches from frequently activated neurons. This growth is
stimulated by proteins called neurotrophins. Nerve growth factor
is one of these neurotrophins. Although the brain measurements of
neurotrophins are highest during childhood (when the brain's connecting
cells are undergoing their greatest growth and development), as students
continue to learn, neurotrophin activity is elevated in the brain regions
responsible for new learning (Kang, Shelton, Welcher, & Schuman,
1997).
Once these dendrites are formed, the brain's plasticity
allows it to reshape and reorganize the networks of dendrite-neuron
connections in response to increased or decreased use of these pathways
(Giedd et al., 1999).
Examples of brain plasticity have been noted when people
repeatedly practice activities controlled by parts of their visual,
motor, sensory, or coordination systems for specialized learned
activities. Blind people who read Braille have significantly larger
somatosensory cortexes, where the sense of touch in their right fingers
is processed. Similarly, violin players who use the fingers of their
left hands to do the complicated movements along the strings have
larger somatosensory regions in the area of their parietal lobe associated
with the fingers of the left hand.
A 2004 report in Nature found that people who learned
how to juggle increased the amount of gray matter in their occipital
lobes (visual memory areas). When they stopped practicing the juggling,
the new gray matter vanished. A similar structural change appears to
occur in people who learn—and then don't practice—a second language. The
decrease in connecting dendrites and other supporting brain connecting
cells that are not used is called pruning. The loss of native language
ability, juggling skills, or learned academic material that is not practiced
is the flip side of the brain's growth response to learning. It is the “use
it or lose it” phenomenon. The process is called “pruning” because the
brain pathways and connections that are used regularly are maintained and
“hard-wired,” while others are eliminated, or pruned.
Pruning. Just as hedges are pruned to cut off errant
shoots that don't communicate with many neighboring leaves, the
brain prunes its own inactive cells. By the time we enter adolescence,
our brain has chosen most of the final neurons it will keep throughout
our adult life based on which cells are used and which are not.
Neurons are pruned when they are not used. Active cells
require blood to bring nourishment and clear away waste, but cells
that are inactive don't send messages to the circulatory system to
send blood. (The brain cells receive circulation not from blood, as
seen in the rest of the body, but rather from a colorless, filtered form
of blood called cerebral spinal fluid.) This reduced blood flow means
that calcium ions accumulate around the cell and are not washed away.
This build-up of calcium ions triggers the secretion of the enzyme calpain,
which causes cells to self-destruct.
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