Our brain or the way we are

The development of our personality has been exhaustively studied and described by various scientific disciplines. Psychology, biology and psychiatry are best-known for that in particular. It is common knowledge that human beings are formed by experiences, that genes affect our character and that psychiatric syndromes can do considerable damage to human personality. Neuroscience focuses on the underlying processes taking place in the brains, reaching the conclusion that it is all a matter of building up networks in our brains

Genes, networks and communication in the brains

Our brains are the nerve centre of our body. For instance, they control movements of the muscles, memory is formed by processes in the brains and emotions and feelings are generated there. The brain can do all these things because it avails itself of the ability to communicate with other cells. This communication takes place through the synapses, the space between two neurons, in particular between the cell sending a message and the cell receiving it. Brain cells use various methods to communicate with each other; for instance, via substances having a messenger function in the brains, or, likewise, through differences in electrical charge between the cells involved and their chemical composition.

The connections brain cells make with each other and other cells in the body are not effected automatically. Primarily, genes determine what pathways will be cleared, which in turn can be paved or become silted up, or even made impassable, by experiences. Genes can also lay out new side-paths and pathways, sometimes for single use and sometimes for frequent traffic.

For that matter, it is not true that genes are idle once they have supplied the blueprint for the brains. Genes produce proteins, which can switch cells 'on' and 'off'. Thus they take part in deciding how well passable a newly laid out pathway will be.

Cognition, emotion and motivation

The way we think, feel and act, what preferences we have and our outlook on life make us unique creatures with an individual personality.

Three pillars are significant for the development of our personality, all of them springing from the processes taking place in our brains:

• Cognition, which is the ability to learn from experiences. This requires we have a memory and have access to it to a certain extent. If we could not access it, we would remain a tabula rasa or a mind in its original ignorant state and could not develop our personality.

• Emotion. Without emotions, we would be like robots, programmable.

• Motivation: the urge to learn or the quest for human happiness. Without motivation, it would be impossible to, for instance, have ideals or make plans.

Mental processes and emotions

The brain areas involved in cognitive processes are different from those that generate emotion or motivation. Though they do not function entirely independently, the circuits that are used are actually different. For instance, the brain areas involved in cognition hardly affect the generation of emotions. Conversely, emotions can disturb our mental process thoroughly, which is unavoidable because it enables us to react to danger at once. The price we pay for this protection is that undesired and inappropriate emotions are hard to block out and consequently may complicate the way we function.

On the other hand, it is beyond dispute that cognition and motivation have control over the way we handle our emotions and how we act. We should consider ourselves lucky for that, because, after all, this is what sets us apart from most other animals.

Motivation, experiences and stimuli

Motivation could be described as the will to live or survive under circumstances which are as pleasant as possible. What is pleasant, is different for every human being. These differences are created by the complex interaction of our genes and the experiences we have gained. The latter should be viewed in a broad perspective, because observing what specific experiences do or have done to others may have a stimulating effect on us, just like knowing how people think about specific behaviour. In that sense, the culture we grow up with is contributory to our motivation to do or not to do things.

As to motivation, we are inclined to think of the rewarding system in our brains only, like, for instance, the production of 'feel good' substances under specific circumstances. In fact, the rewarding system has a great influence on motivation, just like avoiding negative feelings or punishment.

However, there is more: we must be willing to work for something. This willingness to exert oneself is mainly the result of the release of dopamine in a tiny organ in the brains: the nucleus accumbens. This happens automatically when we are in an emotional state. When we are in an acute emergency, thoughts like 'I do not feel like going into action now' do not occur to us. On the other hand, under normal circumstances we can be awfully lazy.

Stress and frustration may lead to deficiencies of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. The nasty thing about this is that, by contrast, instead of tackling their causes, we don't feel like doing anything about it

Personality and change

We are the product of the processes taking place in our brains. Does this mean that this is just the way we are and that we have little to say about that?

No. We have the potential to change, even drastically sometimes. If our behaviour or ideas do damage to ourselves or others, we have a moral obligation to do something about it.

However... this is easier said than done: can we accept that we do not function effectively without having the feeling that we renounce our individual personality? After all, don't we all want most of all to be accepted the way we are, even with our flaws?

Or, to put it in other words: how strong is our motivation to change?

“When you begin to accept yourself the way you are right now, you begin a new life with new possibilities that did not exist before because you were so caught up in the struggle against reality that that was all you could do.”

– Travelling free, Mandy Evans

Sources: www.todio.nl