THE ZOMBIE IN THE BRAIN AND THE WOMAN

WHO DIED LAUGHING FROM V.S. RAMACHADRAN’S “PHANTOMS IN THE BRAIN”

By Cory Ruda

The Zombie in the Brain

Overview of the Case

Patient: Diane Fletcher Recently Moved to ItalyExposed to large amounts of Carbon

Monoxide from improperly vented hot water heater

Bathroom quickly filled with the gasLost consciousness and collapsedLeft there until discovery ~20 minutes later

Post Recovery

Survived the ordeal, but with changesChanges caused by atrophied brain tissue

○ Complete blindness with progressed to recognition of colors and textures

○ Unable to recognize shape or distinctions○ Was still able to recognize objects by touch,

and voices

Strange Abilities (Not Laser Vision)

When asked, “ What is this?” while a pencil was presented before her, she reached out and took the pencil without any difficulty, and with the same dexterity as a fully-sighted person

As if “a zombie” (a nonconcious being) was guiding her motions

“It’s cool, Bro, we got this.”

Further Tests

“Is this mail slot vertical or horizontal?”Diane’s response was that she could neither

see the slot, nor place a letter in it, but when she was asked to insert the letter, she was able to with deft precision

Zombie

How Does Vision Work

The idea that vision is like a movie screen doesn’t work

There’s no little guy watching the show on the back of our eyeballs

Instead, vision is like a “Symbolic Description,” which is understood as words are

Not Exactly….

What?

Every image, movement, color, and visual texture is really just a certain stimuli which fires off different neurons to produce the sight picture we see, just like word-squiggles produce the understanding of words like “understanding” Text Wall

It must be understood that if all that was happening was a translated picture, there would be no ambiguity is vision

Perception could change radically even when the image on the retina (what we look at) remains the same

It’s why a Necker cube (next page) “magically” faces two ways at once!!!!

“It’s what I do.”

Why?

This is brought about by evolution allowing us to realize that the world is not static

We have adapted to make “visual assumptions,” such as, “That patch of spots moving in unison is probably a freakin’ leapard...”

How This Is Possible

This is because of the thirty visual-processing areas in the brain, each with its own unique jobs to do

We know this because, when one or more are damaged, certain abilities are lost, such as…

The Case of “Ingrid”

Ingrid suffered from “Motion Blindness” Has damage to the Middle Temporal

region of the brain Causes her to see motion not as a fluid

picture, but as if it were a series of photographs or snap shots

The Case of “The Artist”

“Artist” suffers an extremely minor stroke, unnoticed until he went home to find that his paintings and art were all black, white, and shades in between

The area called V4 was destroyed

Importants of How Sight Works

Images enter eyeballs through optic nerve

Splice (Bifurcate) into 2 pathways One pathway is “old” compared to the

evolutionary pattern of the “new” pathway

What They Do

Old Pathway: Allows us to “Orient” ourselves to danger (Such as, Fast movement, large, looming things, Leopard) Very Reactionary

New Pathway: Allows us to choose how to react after orienting to it (dodge, dip, dive, duck, and dodge)

The New Pathway splits off again!

How so?

The new pathway enters 2 different areas: “How,” and “what”

How: Determines direction of other things, how we navigate terrain, distances, walking around, and dexterity when reaching out to something

What: What is that, a pear, a girlscout, or is eight stories tall and is a crustacean from the protozoic era

Diane?

Basically, what happened is that the “What” pathway was dissembled and destroyed, leaving the “How”

Her basic vision may be gone to her, but her mind and eyes can still use the “How” which is HOW she can still know HOW to reach out and grab a pencil, or a letter!

The Zombie is HOW

The Woman Who Died Laughing

Overview of the Cases Willy Anderson

Mother just diedAs she’s being lowered into the grave, he

starts literally “LoL”-ing against his will, and is unable to stop

He is brought to the hospital hours later after he stopped laughing for a routine check

Two days later he is found unconscious after a sever brain hemorrhage and dies soon after

Overview Cont.

Ruth Greenough58 year-old librarian from PhiladelphiaSuffered a minor stroke at a younger ageHad a sudden severe headache, eyes rolled

back in her head, struck with an uncontrollable laughing fit

Laughter lasted an hour and a halfMorphine had no effectConscious, could follow directionsWent comatose, died within 24 hours

Quote by Dr. Purdon Martin “The laughter is a mock or sham and it

mocks the laughter at the time, but this is the greatest mockery of all, that the patient should be forced to laugh of his own doom.”

What May Trigger It?

Both patients mentioned had pressure built up from hemorrhaging which caused pressure against the thalamus and hypothalamus, along with the floort of the brain

In a 15 year-old patient, Doctors induced laughter by electrically stimulating different parts of the brain

However, it wasn’t just that laughter was triggered in the patient, but that Susan (the patient) literally found everything funny (IE: A painting of a horse, the Doctors standing around her, the room itself...)

“You guys are just so funny standing around.” -Susan

Overall

The onset of abnormal laughter is almost always created in a relatively small portion of the brain (The Hypothalamus, mammillary bodies, and cingulate gyrus) Which also work with emotions, a “laughter circuit”

Lmao!

Why is it even there?

Natural selection scientifically defines the reason that certain kinds of traits exists in beings alive now

Easily put, if it helps you survive and adapt better, it probably survived genetically to offspring

Especially this

Depending on which current scientific camp you may subscribe to, evolution and natural selection most likely do not easily explain the existence of “laughter”

Or does it?

How does a joke (which may make you laugh)

work? 1st) I lead you on a semi-fanciful story,

full of expectation and tension. (I say, “So a guy walks into a bar”)

2nd) You make inferences on what’s going to happen (You think, “Maybe he’ll sit down and get a drink”)

3rd) I introduce a new twist with a whole new interpretation of the facts (And I finish with, “And he says ouch”)

Why is this Funny?

Because you had no idea I was going to say that, and when you reinterpreted the facts, you realize that my possibility is just as plausible as yours, but not what you were expecting. HA!

This is called, “A Paradigm Shift!”

So?

That’s how it works, but what does that even matter?

The whole idea of the “false sense of security” is important because it leads to another theory, the “False Alarm Theory”

False Alarm Theory (Hypothesis?)

Imagine a rotund man who is pompous is walking down the road. He slips and falls. You may go, “Begasp!” and be worried.

He gets up, and is fine. You laugh quite heartily. Why?

Because…

You now know that the big guy is fine, and that your worries are for not.

Your laughter is a signal for diffusing the worries of your friends and those around you!

Don’t worry, it isn’t a leopard! It’s only a bunny.

Furthermore…

Think about a monkey-type being from which we have evolved

When something comes quickly towards it (Such as another monkey-type) it bears its fangs and snarls angrilly as if to say, “Mess with me, friend, and I shall release a once sealed can of butt-whoop upon you.”

What happens, however, if the incoming monkey-type is a friend, or a mate? That snarl turns into a smile!

A smile is just a quickly terminated snarl of anger to show that you are friends!

So, to explain laughter, it is not but an aborted threat against the adrenaline of anger

Like a poor, violent panda joke, I’m finished