PRESENTACIÓN

LEARNING AND PLEASURE, MEMORY AND REWARD; THEY ARE,

it seems inextricably intertwined. It's a truth we've all experi-enced: as we try to understand something, solve some problem

which has been troubling us, stretch our minds to accommo-date new ideas, we feel a vague sense of strain and effort.

Then, suddenly, with a thrill, we understand, the problem is solved, the new ideas become clear, and we are filled with a sense of pleasure, a sensual feeling of satisfaction as our body flows with warmth.

Why are learning and pleasure so interrelated? Neuroscien-tists see this combination as an evolutionary development, a system that developed in animals over millions of years to increase their chances for survival. Decades of research with both laboratory animals and with humans have proved that one of the most effective ways to teach something is to provide the subjects with a reward when they learn. The endorphins, ac-cording to neuroscientists, serve as the body's "natural reward system," providing us with a rush of pleasure whenever we learn something or act in some way that is conducive to our survival as a species.

151

MEGABRAIN

provements are triggered by very small doses of the peptides, compared to the relatively huge doses required to get the anal-gesic effect.⁸⁴

LEARNING ON THE PLEASURE PATHWAYS

BUT HOW COULD ENDORPHINS, KNOWN MAINLY FOR THEIR

physical effects and "opiates," such as relieving pain and pro-ducing euphoria, have such powerful mental or cognitive ben-efits? One answer, neuroscientists now believe, is that in humans the places in the brain that produce most endorphins and contain the largest concentration of endorphin receptors are the same areas of the brain involved most intimately with learning and memory.

Three decades ago, James Olds, inserting electrodes into rats' brains and allowing them to simulate themselves, dis-covered that there were specific "reward centers" that seemed to produce so much pleasure that the rats preferred self-stimulation to food, drink, sex, or sleep. With the discovery of endorphins, as we have seen, numerous researchers con-firmed that electrical stimulation of these pleasure centers caused sharp increases in endorphin production. In 1978, Aryeh Routtenberg of Northwestern University located these pleasure centers and found they were connected by what he called pleasure pathways. These pathways, according to Routtenberg, are more extensive than previously thought, ex-tending from deep in the brain stem, the earliest part of the brain to evolve, far forward into the cortex of the frontal lobes, the most recent part of the brain to evolve. As he traced these pleasure pathways, Routtenberg found that they were connected with the pathways in the brain associated with the neurotransmitters called catecholamines (norepinephrine and dopamine) as well as the pathways and areas with the greatest concentrations of endorphins and endorphin receptor sites.

Further, Routtenberg noted that these pleasure pathways are closely associated with the areas of the brain known to be involved in learning and the formation of memory. He cited

150

WE SING THE M I N D ELECTRIC, PART TWO: THE ALPHA STIM

experiments by Olds and others that showed a connection be-tweer stimulation of the pleasure centers, or "reward," and learning, and concluded, "the evidence clearly shows that the brain-reward pathways play an important role in learning and memory." How? Says Routtenberg, "I have speculated that the pathways of brain reward may function as the pathways of memory consolidation. By this I mean that when something is learned, activity in the brain-reward pathways facilitates the formation of memory.... Evidence for the reward effects of localized electrical stimulation... and for the association of reward paths with memory formation indicates that the neutral substrates of self-stimulation play a vital role in the guidance of behavior."²⁸⁶

THE SELFISH GENES OF THE ROBOT DUCK

LEARNING AND PLEASURE, MEMORY AND REWARD; THEY ARE,

it seems inextricably intertwined. It's a truth we've all experi-enced: as we try to understand something, solve some problem

which has been troubling us, stretch our minds to accommo-date new ideas, we feel a vague sense of strain and effort.

Then, suddenly, with a thrill, we understand, the problem is solved, the new ideas become clear, and we are filled with a sense of pleasure, a sensual feeling of satisfaction as our body flows with warmth.

Why are learning and pleasure so interrelated? Neuroscien-tists see this combination as an evolutionary development, a system that developed in animals over millions of years to increase their chances for survival. Decades of research with both laboratory animals and with humans have proved that one of the most effective ways to teach something is to provide the subjects with a reward when they learn. The endorphins, ac-cording to neuroscientists, serve as the body's "natural reward system," providing us with a rush of pleasure whenever we learn something or act in some way that is conducive to our survival as a species.

151

MEGABRA1N

Neuroscientist Candace Pert, of the NIMH, startled the sci-entific world in 1973 when, still a young graduate student, she discovered the opiate receptor. Since then she has studied the actions of endorphins extensively, and sees them as a key to survival-oriented behavior. If the ability to survive as an indi-vidual and as a species can be equated with "intelligence," she suggests, then the endorphins could be said to be intelligence enhancers. Says Pert, "If you were designing a robot vehicle to walk into the future and survive, as God was when he was designing human beings, you'd wire it up so that the kinds of behavior that would ensure the survival of that species - sex and eating, for instance - are naturally reinforcing. Behavior is modifiable, and it is controlled by the anticipation of pain or pleasure, punishment or reward. And the anticipation of pain or pleasure has to be coded in the brain." This system of natural reinforcement, says Pert, is the endorphin system.

A key to this view of endorphins as stimulating intelligence by rewarding behavior that helps a species to reproduce and survive has been stated effectively by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene: each creature on earth is a finely evolved device to reproduce and survive. A duck is simply a robot vehicle carrying around the duck's genes for the propa-gation of more duck genes. Says Pert, "A human being is a robot vehicle for the propagation of human genes. Yet some-how it seems to be requiring greater and greater intelligence for human genes to propagate. We're evolving toward perfect knowledge. Remember, all human beings alive today are the offspring of a long chain of ancestors, each of whom was smart enough to survive." (Emphasis added.)

In addition to rewarding us with pleasure for learning, en-dorphins also help us to learn and to survive by deciding what information we allow into our brains. According to Pert, the human brain acts as a "reducing valve," filtering out an infi-nite number of possible perceptions, so that we are able to become conscious of only a certain number of selected or filtered perceptions. One example she points to is the electro-magnetic spectrum. "Each organism," she points out, "has evolved so as to be able to detect the electromagnetic energy

152

WE SING THE MIND ELECTRIC, PART TWO: THE ALPHA STIM

that will be most useful for its survival. Each has its own window on reality. Humans can perceive the part of the color spectrum between infrared and ultraviolet. Bees can't see red at all. They can see up through several shades of purple. We cannot." Such a filtering process is, of course, essential for our survival: if all the possible information coming to us in the form of light, sound, taste, smell, emotion, thought, and so on were constantly to battle for attention in our conscious brain, we would soon be driven mad.

Pert and her team at NIMH have proposed "that the endor-phins, our natural opiates, are a filtering mechanism in the brain. The opiate system selectively filters incoming informa-tion from every sense - sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch - and blocks some of it from percolating up to higher levels of consciousness... . Everybody's version of the world is significantly different." Says Pert, "as incoming informa-tion travels from the senses up through higher and higher levels of the nervous system, it gets processed at each stage.

Some is discarded; some is passed on to the higher regions of the brain. There's a filtering - a selecting - based on

emo-tional meaning, past experience, and so on."³⁶⁷

What the endorphins filter out, claims Pert, is information which is not essential or helpful for our survival; when con-fronted by a life-and-death situation, such as a potential car accident, for example, all our attention is focused on that situ-ation. Our senses seem to gain incredible intensity, with time slowing down, while other information available to us, such as what music is playing in the background, or what billboards are by the side of the road, seems to disappear from con-sciousness, filtered out as irrelevant to our survival. In other words, the endorphins choose what reality we experience, and they do so on the basis of what is "best" for us, like neuro-chemical mommies running around in our brains. And when we act in a way that is best for us, we are rewarded with a flood of pleasure. Since survival requires increasing amounts of intelligence and learning, then intelligence and learning are

"good" for us as a species, and are rewarded by pleasure.

Endorphins act as filters and determiners of "reality," and as 153

MEGABRA1N

Neuroscientist Candace Pert, of the NIMH, startled the sci-entific world in 1973 when, still a young graduate student, she discovered the opiate receptor. Since then she has studied the actions of endorphins extensively, and sees them as a key to survival-oriented behavior. If the ability to survive as an indi-vidual and as a species can be equated with "intelligence," she suggests, then the endorphins could be said to be intelligence enhancers. Says Pert, "If you were designing a robot vehicle to walk into the future and survive, as God was when he was designing human beings, you'd wire it up so that the kinds of behavior that would ensure the survival of that species - sex and eating, for instance - are naturally reinforcing. Behavior is modifiable, and it is controlled by the anticipation of pain or pleasure, punishment or reward. And the anticipation of pain or pleasure has to be coded in the brain." This system of natural reinforcement, says Pert, is the endorphin system.

A key to this view of endorphins as stimulating intelligence by rewarding behavior that helps a species to reproduce and survive has been stated effectively by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene: each creature on earth is a finely evolved device to reproduce and survive. A duck is simply a robot vehicle carrying around the duck's genes for the propa-gation of more duck genes. Says Pert, "A human being is a robot vehicle for the propagation of human genes. Yet some-how it seems to be requiring greater and greater intelligence for human genes to propagate. We're evolving toward perfect knowledge. Remember, all human beings alive today are the offspring of a long chain of ancestors, each of whom was smart enough to survive." (Emphasis added.)

In addition to rewarding us with pleasure for learning, en-dorphins also help us to learn and to survive by deciding what information we allow into our brains. According to Pert, the human brain acts as a "reducing valve," filtering out an infi-nite number of possible perceptions, so that we are able to become conscious of only a certain number of selected or filtered perceptions. One example she points to is the electro-magnetic spectrum. "Each organism," she points out, "has evolved so as to be able to detect the electromagnetic energy

152

WE SING THE MIND ELECTRIC, PART TWO: THE ALPHA STIM

that will be most useful for its survival. Each has its own window on reality. Humans can perceive the part of the color spectrum between infrared and ultraviolet. Bees can't see red at all. They can see up through several shades of purple. We cannot." Such a filtering process is, of course, essential for our survival: if all the possible information coming to us in the form of light, sound, taste, smell, emotion, thought, and so on were constantly to battle for attention in our conscious brain, we would soon be driven mad.

Pert and her team at NIMH have proposed "that the endor-phins, our natural opiates, are a filtering mechanism in the brain. The opiate system selectively filters incoming informa-tion from every sense - sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch - and blocks some of it from percolating up to higher levels of consciousness... . Everybody's version of the world is significantly different." Says Pert, "as incoming informa-tion travels from the senses up through higher and higher levels of the nervous system, it gets processed at each stage.

Some is discarded; some is passed on to the higher regions of the brain. There's a filtering - a selecting - based on

emo-tional meaning, past experience, and so on."³⁶⁷

What the endorphins filter out, claims Pert, is information which is not essential or helpful for our survival; when con-fronted by a life-and-death situation, such as a potential car accident, for example, all our attention is focused on that situ-ation. Our senses seem to gain incredible intensity, with time slowing down, while other information available to us, such as what music is playing in the background, or what billboards are by the side of the road, seems to disappear from con-sciousness, filtered out as irrelevant to our survival. In other words, the endorphins choose what reality we experience, and they do so on the basis of what is "best" for us, like neuro-chemical mommies running around in our brains. And when we act in a way that is best for us, we are rewarded with a flood of pleasure. Since survival requires increasing amounts of intelligence and learning, then intelligence and learning are

"good" for us as a species, and are rewarded by pleasure.

Endorphins act as filters and determiners of "reality," and as 153

MEGABRAIN

rewards for survival-oriented - i.e., intelligent - behavior seem to be favoring and guiding us toward what Pert calls

"perfect knowledge."