The brain and its self.

Abstract

SNAKING OUT of the MRI tube where I had lain for the past half hour, I glimpsed Dr. Hanna Damasio studying the lab's dis play screen. Off the gurney, I went to her side and stared at the image of my brain on the screen. "Is that—me?" Well, yes, in a certain sense. And yet not simply, or merely, me. Certainly not familiarly me. Here is what I thought: "Somehow, starting in infancy, my brain built a story about itself—its body, its history, its 'now,' and its world. From the inside, I know that story—though I think of it as reality, not just a story. Indeed, it is my inner reality. So how does this happen? What is it for me to be a construction of my brain?" In one form or another, these questions have had a long and convo luted history, born in the unflinching curiosity of the ancient Greeks, and finding voice in diverse cultures. Until recently, the only explana tory resources for addressing puzzling behavior depended on mytholo gizing in the case of others, and myth-filtered introspection in the case of oneself. Not surprisingly, early explanations invoked possession by devils or, if you were luckier, divine forces, to account for epileptic sei zures or schizophrenic hallucinations. In the absence of understanding, the punishment theory of mental dysfunction commanded widespread belief, yet it was wholly untestable—and essentially untested. Melancholia (what we now call chronic depression) and phobias were often surmised to be essentially character flaws—flaws that might be overcome with sufficient gumption. The existence of witches, hexes, curses, and spells had a far longer history as brute fact than does our appreciation of such potent neurochemicals as serotonin. Obsessive hand washing, a mere fifteen years ago, was widely assumed to be a manifes tation of repressed sexuality. Nevertheless, even as early as 400 BC, the great Greek physician, Hippocrates, was convinced that events such as