tests
for brain assessment, 130–44
diagnostic, xi–xii, xvii, 33, 44–47, 54, 126, 193–94, 206–9, 228
for neuro-optometric rehabilitation, 214, 248–60, 276–77, 286–88, 292–94
and prism goggles, 251–52
for vision, 260, 276–77, 287, 292–94
Zelinsky’s Z-Bell, xvii, 258–59, 262, 270, 293
Thomas, Suzanne, 12
thought, xii, 5, 84, 111, 228–29, 266
and balance, 87, 93–94
building blocks of, 205
causes pain, 8, 40, 140, 156–59, 165, 193
and eye motion, 158, 245
“fuzzy,” 291–92
improvement in, 223, 241, 294
processes of, 20, 73–83, 115, 118, 131, 133–37
symbols of, 94, 104, 155, 159, 177, 183, 185, 222, 244
translated into action, 62
visual, 103–4, 158
and visual symbols, 259, 266–67, 294
See also daemons (thought processes)
thrashing, 98, 263
time, 5, 8–9, 24, 28–30, 106, 113–19, 120–24, 126, 143, 159, 164–65, 169–70, 199, 223, 274
traumatic brain injury (TBI), xii, xix–xxi, xx, 10, 54–55, 69–72, 87, 130–31, 205, 219, 228, 230, 246–47, 249–53. See also brain injury; concussion
treatment, xx, xxiii, 34
effective, 105, 108, 225–26, 248
lack of, 194, 248
and medical insurance, 48
search for, 39–48, 54–55, 70, 123, 126, 180, 192–94, 200–1
See also eyeglasses; neuro-optometric rehabilitation; recovery; tests
University of Leicester, 12
vestibular system, 7, 84–87, 192
veterans, xix
vision, 106
and balance, 79, 86
binocular, 254–55, 287
center field of, xv–xvi, 97–98, 237, 242–44, 249–50, 256, 260, 263, 277, 291
complex process of, 242–48
improvement in, 241
internal, 141, 221–22, 239, 250
loss of, 189
musical, 221–22
peripheral, xvi, 96, 223, 237, 242–45, 250, 255–57, 260, 262, 274, 277, 288
stereo, 253–55
See also 3D; eyeglasses; eyes; tests
visual
cortex, xxiv, 89, 129, 229, 242–48, 255, 257, 277
data, 96–99
goals, 6, 8
images, 141–43, 165, 167
impairment, 4–9, 15–17, 23, 32–33, 40–42, 44–46, 49, 90, 96–98, 108, 183–84, 278
input, xv, 86, 90, 145–47
landscape/scene, 32–33, 57, 98, 145, 175, 209, 241, 250–51, 254–55, 263, 266
overload, 94, 149, 160, 250, 263
pattern matching, 60, 69, 78, 174
patterns, 87, 159, 284
process, 96–97
processing, xv–xvi, 17, 91, 103–4, 116–19, 244, 250, 256–57
relationships, 123–24
representation, 121–22, 183
rest, 7, 58, 106
signals, 255, 280
stress, 89
symbols, 147–48, 184, 218, 259
thinking, 103–4, 158
visual/spatial
difficulties, 102, 108, 126
functions, 213
goals, 67–68
information, 244
instruction, 65
meaning, 151
metaphor, 67
nature of spirituality, 107–8
overload, 87
pattern match, 78
processing, xviii, 116–17, 190, 244
reasoning, 82
representation, 62, 77, 116, 139
signals, 245–48
systems, 87, 90, 164, 259
visual-symbolic process, 91, 96–97, 119
visual system, 58, 94, 213, 250, 257
and balance, 84–87, 89–92
difficulties with, 49, 87, 107
explanation of, xvi, 242–48
fatigue of, 118–19, 174, 183–84
and sleep, 102–6
stress on, xi–xii
visualization, 44, 66, 72, 87, 115–16, 158–59, 184, 189–91, 237–39, 241, 290
voicemail, 61, 123, 196
writing. See handwriting/writing
Zelinsky, Dr. Deborah, xii, xv–xviii, xxiv, 219, 242, 297
background/description of, 212–14
diagnosis of, 260–63, 287–88
first meeting with, 213–15
and improved hearing, 216–20
methods of, 245, 248–49, 253–54, 261–63, 269–70, 276–77, 282, 284–85, 290–94
prescribes “brain” glasses, 215–16, 225–26, 241, 259–94
tests ordered by, 248–60, 269–70, 288–90, 292–94
Z-Bell Test of, xvii, 258–59, 262, 270, 288–90, 293
*With academic and professional titles: Harry Riley Spitler, D.O.S., M.D., Ph.D.; A. M. Skeffington, O.D., D.O.S., F.A.A.O.; Gerald Getman, O.D., D.O.S., Sc.D.; Harry Wachs, O.D.; Bruce Wolff, O.D.; John Thomas, O.D.; Albert A. Sutton, O.D., M.S., F.C.O.V.D.; Selwyn Super, D. Optom., D.Ed.; Babak Kateb, M.D., Ph.D.
Abbreviation key: O.D., D. Optom. (Doctor of Optometry); D.O.S. (Doctor of Optometric Science); Sc.D. (Doctor of Science); F.A.A.O. (Fellow, American Academy of Optometry); F.C.O.V.D (Fellow, College of Optometrists in Visual Development); D.Ed. (Doctor of Education); F.N.O.R.A. (Fellow, Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association).
*There is a lot of confusion, if not outright controversy, about the differences between traumatic brain injury (TBI), mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI/MTBI), post-concussion syndrome (PCS), and other labels, relative to how persistent the symptoms are: initial unconsciousness, score on the Glasgow Coma Scale, etc. There is also much that is outright wrong about measures of the persistence of symptoms. I will use the simplest definition of TBI—a physical trauma to the head causing brain injury—and concussion mostly interchangeably as terms in this nonmedical, nonlegal text.
*“P4_4 Travelling by Teleportation,” Journal of Physics Special Topics, November 6, 2012, https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/558/380.
*That these memories are dark is significant to me now, because it would not be a common occurrence in the years to come. It appears that such “missing pieces” of my life story were a feature only of the very early days after the crash.
*Although I many times made the choice not to drive, or to rest before doing so, in the fifty thousand miles covered during this period I never got a ticket or came close to causing any kind of accident.
*It turns out that there is a strong link between people who dispositionally exhibit this failure to filter out extraneous information (in a syndrome known as cognitive disinhibition) and highly creative thought. See, e.g., Shelley Carson, “The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric,” Scientific American Mind, April 14, 2011, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-unleashed-mind. See also references for Schizotypal Personality [disorder].
*This commitment to service really is pervasive, and starts at the top: the Reverend Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., Ed.D., president of DePaul, for example, donates his entire $800,000-plus salary to the Vincentian order, of which he is a member.
*A cognitive sense, thought to be located in the superior parietal lobe.
*For those concussives reading this, looking for tips, I’ll note: it was harder to ask women, who apparently have to be more cautious about this kind of thing (though once they’ve committed they are more helpful); it was easier to ask a stranger for a push than a tug because the former seems to feel less personal
.
*People will identify correctly a darting animal in their yard as a squirrel, not a platypus, because this is highly likely—they follow the base rates; they incorrectly fear mass murderers in schools when their children are vastly more likely to be harmed in a car accident—they don’t follow the base rates.
*From an anatomical perspective we might wonder if the caudate nucleus is missing critical visual pattern-matching input that inhibits its ability to send suppression signals to the cingulate gyrus to tell it to stop sending anxiety triggers; an inappropriate balance between these two parts of the brain is suspected in OCD.
*Isolating the causes of suicide is complex. Depression can lead to substance abuse problems. Substance abuse can lead to family problems. Concussion can lead to any of these; any can lead to an increase in suicide risk. However, we can say that “loss of self” is a critical risk factor, and that there is an increased risk of suicide after TBI.
*That is, whatever we decide the real implementation of these processes is, any neurologically faithful daemons built from it will nonetheless still have to exhibit all the behavior we now independently describe.
*In computer science, we have related constructs called processes that are used to implement the daemons. These constructs are similar to our daemon brain processing: they allow the computer to do many things at once, mostly in the background, of which the user is not aware. For example, a quick look at the list of computer tasks currently running on my laptop—which I am currently using only for the single, simple, “conscious” task of editing this book—shows that there are eighty-one other processes now running in the background: checking for network connectivity, updating my file index search function, listening for new USB connections, and so on.
*I mentioned this in a talk, and afterward a recovered stroke victim told me I had precisely captured his own experience: he could hold a candy bar in his hand, and describe every aspect—and function—of it, but could not for the life of him tell you what it was, or himself make use of that information—even though he absolutely knew this in another part of his brain.
*In one fascinating episode, my respected Tai Chi teacher asked me to mail letters for him. I was having lots of trouble making sense of geometry at the time and could not “see” the shape of my having put the white rectangular envelopes into the opening in the mailbox. Thus the letter-mailing daemon did not recognize its termination conditions. I began to worry that an important letter did not get mailed for this esteemed master. Despite the fact that I knew full well that I had mailed the letters, I ended up calling my teacher repeatedly over the course of two weeks, describing the details (but not the gestalt) of my actions in placing the letters in the mailbox—asking if this was good enough—before the daemon finally resolved itself and went away. The link between daemon termination and certainty is thus also made clear.
*Because my experience with this was so ubiquitous, and so debilitating, I consider it to be one of the most crucial concepts we will consider, and perhaps one of the most helpful for those with TBI.
*To set this in context, consider that a pair of super-macho day laborers who had earlier done heavy work on the foundation of my house showed up and said they would cut the tree down for a budget price. They laughed and taunted each other before climbing up to get to work, but each of them returned down the ladder after only a minute—with their knees uncontrollably shaking. They soon gave up, and left.
*One of my graduate students—who also had suffered a brain injury—said that he understood exactly about the loss of elemental cognitive concepts when he had balance problems. In his case the most pronounced result was a flattening of affect, because he could not support the concepts of complex emotions without the more basic concepts of relationship between himself and others, and between himself and the world.
*Ultimately, after five years one M.D. did go out on a limb and say, “Sure, of course,” and sign a form for me. The rest of the paperwork took me a difficult month to get through; the rearview-mirror placard was only good for three months; much of the time the Chicago Police ignored the placard and gave me a ticket anyway. It was great at Home Depot, but the paperwork was far too exhausting to ever apply for a temporary placard again.
*This sense of direction is represented as a spectrum in the general population and is also thought to be at least somewhat sex-linked, relating to—and here relevant to our discussion—spatial rotation capabilities.
*Interestingly, after treatment, I am now more toward the center: I have periods of both dreaming and dreamless sleep. Some people who dream all the time wake up perpetually tired (see, e.g., “epic dream disorder”) and we have to wonder if the kinds of treatment I received might also help them. Further evidence to suggest this might be worth pursuing is the number of such people who also report balance problems.
*Many people who experience sleep paralysis at one point or another also have hypnagogic hallucinations—embodied as visions of various demon incubi or succubi sitting on their legs, or whispering in their ears, and so on. Given the already somewhat terrifying nature of sleep paralysis, I have to say I am extremely glad I never experienced these latter symptoms!
*Reported by inventor Stanley Koren and neuroscientist Michael Persinger, though others have not been able to replicate their results. Regardless, neuroethology—the study of such phenomena—is an ongoing branch of research.
*And of course we could, in theory, also reverse the process—turning our computer brain into a human one by replacing our computer implementations with the real cells they are modeling, one by one. Each of these is a variation of what is known as the “China brain” conundrum discussed by Lawrence Davis in 1974.
*George Lakoff, “The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor,” in Metaphor and Thought, edited by Andrew Ortony (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 202–51.
*Though for scientific readers with an open mind, I can refer to studies of time-reversed causality that at least suggest this may not be the last word on cause and effect: D. I. Radin, (2011), “Predicting the Unpredictable: 75 Years of Experimental Evidence,” in D. Sheehan (Ed)., Frontiers of Time: Quantum Retrocausation (American Institutes of Physics, forthcoming), and Daryl J. Bem, “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100(3) (March 2011): 407–25 (though not yet replicated). Thus modern science raises additional questions about why concussives—who operate closer to unfiltered reality—may have trouble with time.
*There are many extremely detailed measures of working memory in cognitive psychology. I use the term loosely here to refer to my explicit experience, but offer no commentary about any formal, testable properties in this context.
*In fact, our perception rate is far higher in many instances: in working out the debate between analogue and digital music recordings, for example, it has become clear that we hear changes in sound quality that occur in ten thousandths of a second, and perhaps even far less than that.
*We might ask: how do we address it when someone has, instead, an elemental concept of himself as the one who “can’t do it”? If my experience is anything to go on, we’d have to look at the deepest levels of symbolic cognition to make changes to such a built-in program. We’re talking about shapes and colors and primitive relationships here—not the story of one’s family life.
*Imagine I gave you drawings of (1) a spiky figure, and (2) a gently curved line, and asked you to identify them as either a Patiki-tiki or a Smoo. Almost everyone would associate the spiky figure with the Patiki-tiki, and the curve with the Smoo, based on the ideas of spikiness and gentle curves. For me, at times of stress, such ideas, which affected perception and meaning, would blend with objects in the real world.
*Jake is expert in knowing things like what style and color of street sign each city uses.
*Putting myself in rule-following mode worked to avoid problems with specific, highly structured scripts like going to dinner. There was, however, no algorithm that ever worked for avoiding choice in general.
*The pathology of concussion may also contribute to this problem, especially in older concussives. Some of concussion damage is due to axonal injuries—injuries in the connections between neurons. It is believed that some axonal regeneration can take place, but that the regenerated connections may not be as efficient as before (especially in people over forty), resulting in slower processing speeds.
*I tried wearing earplugs when shopping but the change in the aural environment was usually too disconcerting. It also further overloaded my visual system, which had to make up for the loss of environmental spatial context information I ordinarily got from my ears.
*This was an instance of “emergency adrenal mode” where I called on extreme resources to respond to special circumstances. But it took its toll: Several people helped me to my car, with my groceries. I waited for a long time before I could drive. I had to leave the groceries in the car when I got home—where they spoiled several days later. I went without food the rest of the week.
The Ghost in My Brain Page 27