Figure 5.1. Nested BrainMind Hierarchies: Two-Way or Circular Causation. The three-level Nested BrainMind Hierarchy summarizes the hierarchical bottom-up and top-down (two-way or circular) causation proposed to operate in every primal emotional system of the brain. The diagram illustrates the hypothesis that in order for higher MindBrain functions to mature and function (via bottom-up control), they have to be integrated with the lower BrainMind functions Primary processes are depicted as red squares; secondary-process learning as blue circles; and tertiary-level processes by purple rectangles. This coding conveys the manner in which nested hierarchies integrate lower and higher brain functions to eventually exert top-down regulatory control. Adapted from Northoff et al. (2006). See insert for color.
SUMMARY
With the three-level Nested BrainMind Hierarchy (NBH), we have a coherent BrainMind conceptualization—a developmental-functional way of thinking and discussing the cognitive complexities featured by the more strictly psychological, conceptually-oriented personality theorists while still maintaining explicit links to our lower-level primary influences, which are not simply given residual status but offer a bridge to a robust animal neuroscience understanding of primal emotions that can lead to novel therapeutics (Panksepp, 2004, 2006, 2015, 2016; Panksepp et al., 2014; Panksepp & Yovell, 2014). Among Murray’s list of twenty manifest needs, some, such as aggression, would seem to retain their primary-process emotions more obviously, while others seem difficult to parse in terms of primary emotions. We must also recognize the difficulties in parsing the tertiary-level mind in the same way that animal research has allowed comparative neuroscientists to probe the primary emotions through animal brain research (Panksepp, 1982, 1998a).
One question is whether the higher-level mind can create emotional feelings and novel higher-order emotions that are not based on evolved emotions in the subcortical brain. Whether the mind can create emotional subtleties beyond the raw subcortical emotions remains an open question. For instance, are there demonstrable neuroscientific differences between empathy and sympathy, or are they conceptual nuances on a theme only represented in our abstract thoughts that cannot be differentiated in the brain? The NBH way of seeing the brain and mind would suggest that some element of a primary emotion would always be present in our tertiary thoughts, although the variations possible at the secondary level might be virtually limitless.
The importance of the NBH becomes apparent as we discuss additional personality models in future chapters. For now it may be enough that the NBH can provide a richness and a level of integration to the discussions of personality theory that does not require Freud, McDougall, or Murray to be absolutely correct. Perhaps the NBH provides a way of thinking for discussions in which our evolved neurobiology, our capacity for cultural adaptation, and varying levels of individual maturation and adaptation can be reconciled.
CHAPTER 6
Bottom-Up and Top-Down Personality Approaches
For higher MindBrain functions to mature and function (via bottom-up control), they have to be integrated with the lower BrainMind functions . . . in which nested hierarchies are integrating lower brain functions into higher brain functions to eventually exert top-down regulatory control. Affective consciousness (e.g., emotional-feeling qualia) emerges from deep subcortical regions of the brain, whereas cognitive consciousness is a higher brain function that is permitted by the unconscious secondary-process mechanisms of learning and memory formation. Each level of control deserves distinct nomenclatures.
—Jaak Panksepp, “The Cross-Mammalian Neurophenomenology of Primal Emotional Affects”
PRELUDE
It is likely that the progression of evolved primary processes (the various “instincts” that help construct the upper mind) are critically important in the mediation of learning and memory and thereby generating a variety of learned affective-behavioral states that enrich the mental apparatus. Indeed, the complexity of such individual and culturally facilitated memories ultimately generates higher-order emotional feelings in Homo sapiens beyond anything experienced by other species (e.g., as exemplified by our various arts and humanities). Such perspective remains poorly developed in academic psychology, especially in personality theories. From our perspective, it is especially regrettable that psychiatric therapies have not been more clearly based on cross-species analyses and understandings of the evolved, fundamental (primary-process) neural nature of primal emotional feelings of our fellow species (Panksepp, 2015). This perspective is as germane for personality studies as for psychiatric practice. Our goal for this chapter is to focus on how such evolutionary perspectives may facilitate our understanding of the maturation of the neuromental infrastructure of human beings and thereby our understanding of human personality dimensions.
THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION
Why are there so many different theories of personality? Why do different researchers interpret personality so differently? One explanation is that personality theorists work a bit like the Indian parable of the blind men describing an elephant while trying to use their insights from touching only part of the beast. Their theoretical viewpoint depends greatly on where they start their analysis, the feet or body, trunk or ears. There surely must be a more systematic way to grope toward a coherent theory of personality than that, perhaps even one that can be used across multiple species, because all of us mammals, indeed all vertebrates, still share much more of the evolutionary heritage that constructed the fundamental (instinctual) neural (brain) “tools for living” than most psychologists have ever considered. If one starts from the bottom—the brain stem—there are thousands of genes that contribute to molding what different brain circuits do, even though these differences occurred many millions of years apart in ancestral times, long before humans existed. To truly understand the brain processes that all vertebrates share, one has to start at the bottom, focusing on ancient, warm-blooded, highly inquisitive, social and playful mammals such as rats, and understand how the instinctual brain systems that are concentrated below the neocortex operate. At the bottom of the brain, the functional circuitries and emotional similarities across species are much more dramatic than at the top of the brain. The human cortex is more capable of complex thoughts and cultures than that of any other species.
If one starts from the top, the neocortex, practically all the functions there have been learned rather than evolutionarily dictated—from language, to thinking, to even seeing—namely, programmed mostly by living in the world. How can we be confident of this remarkable cortical “constructivist” conclusion? Ever since neurophysiologists (Nobel Laureates of 1981, David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel) identified “feature detectors” in kitten brains they found that these cortical visual specializations do not emerge in cortical regions of relevant brain areas (e.g., occipital lobes) that normally receive visual input from an eye, if that eye had been prevented from seeing early in development (e.g., the eyelid sutured shut soon after birth). Supportive evidence is available from studies of human cortical plasticity observed during brain development of blind and deaf humans. If one does not use the most relevant cortical area early in perceptual development, it is hard for that tissue to catch up later in life, for sensory systems as they grow into the cortex, will tend to go to the closest cortical tissue. Thus, if very early in development one surgically redirects visual input that would normally be “destined” to become visual cortex, animals develop fine vision anyway. Indeed, as Mriganka Sur’s group at MIT found (von Melchner, Pallas, & Sur, 2000), ferrets whose visual input is surgically redirected to the auditory cortex shortly after being born develop perfectly fine cortical visual abilities (i.e., the auditory cortex becomes developmentally programmed to process vision). That is, the cortex is being developmentally constructed, as opposed to being genetically dictated. Thus, we should not be looking for m(any) evolutionary specializations at the top of the brain—all those neocortical specializations seem to be programmed by real-life experiences in the world. In other words, th
e neocortex is like the massive digital storage space in a newly purchased computer—it is empty until you load programs into it via life experiences that allow you to both learn and entertain.
Perhaps the biggest news on this subject, as we were writing this book, on February 26, 2015, an article in Science magazine reported that a single “big brain” gene, called ARHGAP11B, was all that was necessary for the evolutionary expansion of our remarkably massive human neocortex (the biggest of all animals on earth relative to body size). This newly identified gene is found only in modern-day humans and in our long-lost relatives, the Neanderthals of Europe and Denisovans (the archaic human group in southern Siberia), but not in chimps (Florio et al., 2015). In mice the cortical progenitor cells divide only once and then grow into neurons, but in humans these same types of cells divide many times over and thereby, by comparison, form a huge number of neurons. Indeed, if we insert this human cortical expansion gene variant into mice, they grow much larger cortices, with sulci and gyri (grooves and mounds) that may make them smarter—an hypothesis that has not been tested, at least not at the time of this writing.
The message is humbling: The top of our brains, so essential for all of our special human cognitive qualities, from deep thoughts to profoundly mistaken ideas, was permitted by a single gene. The bottom line is humbling: Anyone who still thinks there are diverse evolutionary specializations in our “thinking caps” should be in for a rude awakening. Everything beyond the cortical functional specializations that little mice already have is probably learned. In short, we have no evolved “modules” for reading, writing, and arithmetic up there, no language or music instinct, nor perhaps any of our unique higher mental abilities. These higher qualities of human minds are all learned, albeit perhaps better by some brains than by others. There may be some built-in cognitive specializations that we are not yet aware of, but for present purposes it is wiser to accept that the neocortex is more like the empty random access memory (RAM) of a newly purchased digital computer than the finely engineered read-only memory (ROM) functions that allow the computer to behave so “magically.” The “instinctual” emotions we are born with are more like ROM functions, albeit complexified through learning-mediated programming within more RAM-like tissues.
Clearly, our basic emotional proclivities emerge from built-in subcortical circuits that become cognitivized to fit in with the survival dictates of the world we live in, namely, developmentally refined through experience. The implications of such a nested hierarchy view of the brain and mind are germane for understanding mature human personality structures and functions. The foundational sub-neocortical tissue functions, shared more homologously by all mammals than are neocortical functions, need to be understood first to comprehend the sources and complexities of human personality. Once we have a better handle on these foundational, bottom-up processes, we will better understand the many diversifications provided by our capacity to learn. Then, how personality complexity emerges from emotional simplicity may begin to fall into place.
FROM BOTTOM-UP TO TOP-DOWN: ROUND AND ROUND WE GO
Our neuroscientific understanding of personality development needs to be first conceptualized from the bottom up, which may allow us to better understand diverse top-down processes. Most current personality theorists take a top-down approach, starting with language-based assessments of human traits. They focus on human uniqueness, emphasizing our exceptional cortical capacities, which include using our massive autobiographical memories to interpret life events. These personality theorists often rely on statistical analyses of verbal questionnaires garnering insights from our verbally expressed attitudes, opinions, preferences, and beliefs. They believe such top-down approaches are best for understanding the fundamentals of human personality. Well, it may not be the best, but it is certainly the most convenient and easily accessible. However, developmentally those fundamentals have a bottom-up trajectory.
Studies of the mind through the study of homologous behaviors and feeling patterns across species are markedly more difficult. Indeed, they are so difficult that most animal behaviorists decided a long time ago that trying to fathom animal minds simply through a study of their behaviors was foolish. Little did they realize (or at least acknowledge) that to cross that Rubicon brain research was an absolutely essential enterprise. And we think the bottom-up neuroscientific research approach to understanding basic emotions has the potential to provide a solid evolutionary foundation for personality theory.
Thus, we have chosen to take a bottom-up approach and start with the premise that the affective foundations of our personalities evolved over millions of years, indeed, long before our massive human neocortex expanded at the behest of a single gene. We further surmise that foundational elements of human personalities can be observed in other animals, especially other mammals. Accordingly, it is our position that the foundations of human personality will be better revealed through the study of the evolutionarily older subcortical emotional brain processes, and to a degree the other affective brain processes (e.g., the homeostatic and sensory affects), rather than by focusing on the linguistic functions of the human cortex and our most recently evolved brain expansion. Until we have a solid grasp of the fundamental emotional brain systems we are born with, we are unlikely to be able to accurately understand how those basic systems are elaborated by language and culture into complex adults with stable values, perceptions, and behavior—namely, the higher mental functions (mysteries) that get programmed into our neocortices.
Three-Level Nested BrainMind Hierarchy Revisited
Along these lines, Jaak Panksepp has conceptualized primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of emotional processing (see Figure 5.1 in Chapter 5) and offered various primary subcortical brain circuits (e.g., SEEKING, PANIC/Sadness) as the starting point for the bottom-up approach to understanding animal and human minds (for a simplified rendition of cross-mammalian affects, see Panksepp, 20011b, as well as the Panksepp, 1998a, and Panksepp and Biven, 2012 monographs). In contrast, the tertiary process verbal level is the traditional entry point for the more cognitive and cortical top-down approaches. The secondary level refers to the intervening life experiences encoded by learning into memory stores, which, albeit critical for constructing all the specializations we have in the cortex, is surely important for refining our personalities but not as much for “energizing” them, a function more reserved for the primary-process emotional action systems. Initial guidance is provided by the primary emotional-temperamental differences that are genetically controlled to a substantial extent in subcortical regions and that come to influence what is learned, how fast, and for what purposes. This helps establish temperamentally unique human brain “connectomes” (Smith, 2016) that integrate the affective and cognitive sides of our personalities, for instance, the higher cognitive trait proposed by Charles Spearman in 1904 that came to be known as the “general intelligence g-factor.” How this is influenced, perhaps anchored by our dispositional affective strengths and weaknesses (especially SEEKING urges), will be an exciting line of future investigation. This said, there remains the possibility that some infant nerve cells from subcortical regions may invade the neocortex during brain maturation, such as neurons releasing the corticotrophin stress hormone and oxytocin confidence-promoting neurons. Indeed, we already know that many neurochemical systems do this, such as the acetylcholine, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin systems, where most neural cell bodies remain subcortically situated, even though they extend axonal branches into the cortex. We suspect such neural extensions do happen, probably to a degree under early environmental control, allowing “ancestral memories” to eventually directly guide higher brain functions.
In any event, it would avoid a great deal of confusion (especially when working with emotions, behavior, and personality), for researchers to be explicitly aware of which level of the brain-mind processing they are studying. Throughout the twentieth century, there has been a tendency to rely on our unique capacity for lan
guage to guide our thinking about personality and psychology, without recognizing that our primal affective mental foundations are dramatically shared with all the other mammals of the world, and in yet more diminutive ways with cold-blooded vertebrates, perhaps even invertebrates (Huber, Panksepp, Nathaniel, Alcaro, & Panksepp, 2011).
Difficulties Entailed in Starting With Top-Down Approaches
Our views are unapologetically cross-species and neuroscientific, with the recognition that what came first, especially the affective subcortical survival-value networks, has led much of the cognitive parade that emerged later, not only in terms of necessary affective survival foundations but also all the learning and memory processes entailed in development of the upper cognitive mind, with its complex decision-making capacities, whereby our nuanced personality differences become seemingly infinitely complex. It is our position that a full understanding of human personality, including emotions and affective/cognitive awareness—namely, “knowing” who we are—is not possible without first understanding the emotional and other affective functions of our subcortical terrain, which emerged earlier in brain evolution. We believe that deep scientific understanding of the life-span development and workings of adult human personality structures is unlikely to succeed using mostly top-down human statistical research approaches, because such research largely ignores the intricate neuroevolutionary powers that constitute our deeply affective natures.
The Emotional Foundations of Personality Page 12