I’m writing a book!
Neuropharmacology. Brains. Drugs. Consciousness. Ageing.
Streamplate is launching this weekend on the App Store, meaning that as I deliver one project, I can begin developing another. I’ve been wanting to write a book for a few years and throughout this year I’ve become more interested in neurobiology — and its failure to be seen as the cornerstone of normal living.
Consider how dysfunction in neurobiology cascades into a dysfunctional brain and consequently a dysfunctional individual.
With this in mind, it was quite jolting to see the following during a neurotrauma lecture this year.
The above graphs indicate a simple reality about brains — they’re malleable, and they’re most malleable during our childhood as best seen by the number of synapses at this time. This means that for those that are victims of abuse, their brain becomes imprinted by trauma and consequently incites them to behave in a dysfunctional, destructive manner.
This highlights an unspoken reality about our minds — that they develop their defining characteristics during our childhoods.
The idea that we then live the rest of our lives with this mind is bizarre. For anyone that has been a victim of trauma or abuse, they’ll understand how much of their mindset today has been shaped by their abuse. It therefore follows that if childhood trauma takes a grip on our minds, does this mean that our entire childhood effectively takes hold and shapes our mind? Yes, yes it does.
We consider our livelihood today to be of high quality when it’s absent of pain. In many ways this is a startling demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect which is a cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are because they can’t perceive higher standards. If you can’t perceive a better life, then how can you be expected to realise you aren’t living in a lesser one?
Over the past decade, there has been a lot of research into a range of drugs to promote neurogenesis in patients suffering from PTSD, chronic depression and anxiety. The results so far have been promising and they highlight how powerful neuropharmacological agents can be in reformatting the mind in wake of serious abuse.
As such, I’ll be exploring why the use of such neuropharmacological agents should be considered for everyone. Our childhoods represents our most vulnerable and often, most painful time for many of us. Even for those that aren’t victims of abuse, the opportunity to continue evolving our mind at its most elemental level is an enticing offer — consider how transformed your mind was from the beginning high school to graduating.
If we have the opportunity to reshape our mind not just to arise above this trauma, but to also enable us to become better thinkers, then we should do so.
Thanks for your support as always,
Looking foward to sharing my progress with you all,
Bryan :)
