Brains

Since I got my iPod a year or so ago I've become addicted to podcasts. All the shows I wish I could listen to on NPR during the day I can download and listen to while I walk or drive. It's great! And free! So, over the last few weeks I have, by chance, listened to two different stories about brains. One was, I think on "To the Best of our Knowledge" and was about brain plasticity. The other was on "Radio Lab" and was about identity. The Radio Lab story started with describing the old experiment where the put paint on chimps' faces and had them look in a mirror. When the chimps touched their own face it was clear that the understood that the mirror image was them. Then they described an interesting experiment where they merged an individual's face with Bill Clinton's face. When they show the morphed image (50% you, 50% Clinton) to the individual, they always identified the picture as themselves. When they showed the image to someone else, who knew you, they identified the picture as Clinton. So, some part of our brain is responsible for seeing "me." Turns out if you anethestize the right side of the brain, the person sees Clinton, not themselves. So, something on the brain's right side is associated with personal identity.

What I found really fascinating, though, was a comment along the lines of "we are each only a freak accident away from being another person." The point being that people who have suffered some type of brain injury often exhibit different personality traits than before.

The other program talked about how different parts of the brain could be reprogrammed to take over functions when one part is injured. And that we can change our thoughts--we can reprogram ourselves to think more positively about something.

Put these together, could you change your personality? Can you reprogram part of your brain to always think differently?