Tunnel Vision

by Gary Braver

  Elizabeth Luria was a professor emerita of microbiology at Harvard Medical School with a long list of publications on brain plasticity and imaging in prestigious-sounding journals such as The National Review of Neuroscience, Neuron, The Journal of Neuroscience. A few were on functional MRI imaging with meaningless titles like “Temporal-Lobe Bursts and ‘Transcendent’ Experiences” and “Total Deafferentation of Posterior-Superior Parietal Lobules PSPL and Self-Transcendence.” The words transcendent and parietal jumped out at him.

  Morris Stern was listed as a professor of behavioral neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Tufts University School of Medicine. He was an expert on brain imaging and directed a lab investigating the neural basis of learning and memory. He had a long list of publications in the journal Neuroimage and Neurobiology.

  Byron Cates was a professor of computational neuroscience and health sciences and technology at MIT. From what Zack gathered, he was an expert on “neuropsychological recordings” and “mathematical modeling to establish definitions of anesthetic states.” That was as meaningless to Zack as was an impressive list of published titles.

  They each had research and/or teaching jobs, so this sleep study was something they did on the side during the evenings.

  Sarah Wyman’s Web site listed her as unmarried and a former nurse who was doing postdoctoral studies at Tufts. On a list of her publications was a paper called “The Role of Serotonin 5-HT (1A) Receptors in Spirituality,” published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

  Spirituality? That did not seem like a topic for a doctoral thesis in neurophysiology. But he was too sleepy on Lunesta to speculate and went to bed thinking of her.

  31

  At six P.M. that Tuesday, the same unfriendly Bruce picked up Zack at the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues. Same trip to the lab. Same ensemble music. But this time Zack was alone. Damian had not passed the screening. He said he didn’t mind. He also wasn’t drowning in debt.

  Zack arrived a little before seven, this time prepared to sleep over. Again Drs. Luria, Stern, and Cates and Sarah Wyman met with him in the same office. Dr. Luria explained the evening’s plan. “This is going to be a different kind of procedure. We’re going to establish a baseline recognition pattern of various images, but we’re going to do it in a functional MRI machine. Have you ever had an MRI scan done?”

  “Just on my shoulder some years ago.”

  “What about on your head?”

  Not while I was conscious. “Nope.”

  “Are you at all claustrophobic?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Good, because we’re going to position your head and shoulders in the MRI with a visible monitor that will project a series of randomly selected visuals. All you have to do is simply look at them. Okay?”

  “How long will I be inside the tube?”

  “Maybe forty minutes.”

  “No problem.”

  “If you feel the least bit uncomfortable, let us know,” Sarah said. “What we’re doing is trying to determine neuroelectrical signatures of your emotional states.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Well,” Dr. Luria said, “in our next session—and hopefully you’ll agree—we will give you something to let you sleep, then do a scan of your brain activity.”

  She went on with more technical language that didn’t clarify much. Zack’s main concern was another $250. “Fine,” he said, and followed them to another room.

  Zack was startled by the size of the MRI machine—a giant white cube with a tube magnet and an attached gurney that slid into the bore. It must have taken some creative engineering to get it down here.

  He changed into loose-fitting pajama bottoms behind a small screen, then lay on the gurney at the opening of the MRI tube. A computer monitor was attached to the lip of the tube for viewing from inside.

  “The images will change every five seconds,” Sarah explained. “All you have to do is look at them. Don’t say anything, don’t move, just look at them. Okay?”

  “Easy enough.”

  Before they rolled him inside, Sarah and Byron Cates taped electrodes to his chest, chin, and scalp. A sensor was attached to his upper lip to measure temperature and airflow from his mouth and nose. Other sensors would measure body functions as well as the oxygen and carbon dioxide blood levels, his heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure. Elastic belts were placed around his chest and stomach to measure respiration. A clip to his earlobe measured oxygen levels.

  Sarah positioned a videocamera on a tripod. “As with all subjects, we’re going to record the procedure. Again, if you’re at all uncomfortable, just say so. We’ll be right here.”

  “Okay.”

  “One more thing,” Sarah said. “We’re going to fit plugs in your ears with a muffler so the sounds of the machine won’t distract you.”

  He agreed, and when she was done, all ambient sound disappeared. He then signaled that he was ready, and she pressed a button, sending him into the tube up to his chest. They adjusted the monitor for his viewing.

  For the next several minutes, bright-colored images flicked across the monitor: sunsets, cats, beach scenes, mountains, cityscapes, a disturbing war image, product logos, cars, and so on. There were also a few of the photos he had sent Luria—shots of himself, his parents, and his dog, Coco, a cocker spaniel that died when Zack was seven. The ordering seemed totally random. And after countless minutes he felt himself become bored and sleepy, although he kept his eyes open as instructed.

  Toward the end, a few photos of his father appeared, including some that had been cropped from family shots, isolating just him. Also the same photo of his father posed with Zack and the striper, taken a year before his father disappeared. Eleven years before he died for real. Then more shots of sunsets, dolphins, flowers, churches, sports cars. But it was the shots of his father that touched him to the quick.

  When the session was over, they rolled him out of the machine and removed the mirror and laptop. “How are you feeling?” Sarah said.

  “A little tired.” But his eyes filled up, which, he told himself, was ridiculous since he had supplied the photos in the first place.

  She put her hand on his shoulder in comfort, clearly seeing him holding back. So as not to embarrass him, all she said was, “You did fine,” then walked him to the changing screen.

  When he was dressed, Dr. Luria came over to him. “We’ll need some time to analyze the data. But if it’s all right with you, we’d like to do another session.”

  He nodded, hating the stranglehold of emotions in front of everybody. In his head he recited the value of pi to twenty places, knowing that if anyone tried to comfort him, he’d crack.

  “Is this Thursday evening good?”

  He nodded and choked out, “Yeah.”

  Luria handed him a check.

  He thanked her, and Sarah walked him to the door, where Bruce waited.

  “See you soon.”

  “Yeah.”

  He got into the car and settled into the comforting dark of the empty rear seat. As they drove in silence, Zack felt anger well up inside. Sarah knew they had cut him at the knees with those cropped and enlarged shots of his father. They were calculated to give them the spikes they were looking for. Maybe it was that helmet the other day. Maybe they had zapped some nostalgia node, leaving him vulnerable. Whatever, he was certain that tonight it was spiking in the red zone of grief.

  So what the hell did that have to do with insomnia?

  32

  A little after seven the next morning, Sarah called Zack to say that she was meeting a nurse friend at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center just down the street from him and was wondering if they could grab a coffee before that.

  He agreed, and they met at My Place, a small café on Gainsborough. They each ordered a coffee and muffin and sat at a corner table. Sarah had a beautiful smooth face with large golden brown eyes and a thin, sharp nose. She wore her hair sho
rt, exposing her long white neck. In the slant of the morning light, she looked like a saint in a medieval painting.

  “I just want to apologize about last night. Sometimes these sessions can stir up emotions.”

  “I guess I was caught off guard.”

  “I understand.”

  He took a sip of his coffee. “Do you? I’m just wondering if you were baiting me.”

  “Baiting you?”

  “The only shots that were cropped and enlarged were those of me and my father.”

  She looked surprised. “Weren’t they photos you’d sent Dr. Luria?”

  “Yes, but they were altered to just focus on him, and they were repeated several times in the sequence.”

  “I wasn’t aware.” She was silent for a moment as she nibbled her muffin. Then she asked, “So how was that baiting you?”

  “The other day, with the helmet test, you found a soft spot.” He was too self-conscious to admit that he had actually uttered “Dad” as if he were that ten-year-old at the top of the stairs. “So was that the point—to lower my guard to confirm a sadness signature?”

  “We were trying to get a broad profile.”

  “Well, you went for the kill.”

  “I’m sorry about that, really.”

  They were quiet for a long moment as he sipped more coffee. “The thing is that experience in the booth was eerie, it was so real. I swear I felt my father’s presence.”

  “That’s the effect of the helmet. The stimulation targets emotion centers of the right hemisphere, and to make sense of them the left parietal lobe creates those sensations.”

  Parietal lobe. Where he got slammed and sent into a twelve-week coma.

  “So, you’re saying the electrical impulses created the illusion of his being there.”

  “Yes. Something made you think of your father, and the electrical impulses simulated an illusion of his presence.”

  “The ghost in the machine.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  They were quiet for a few moments. “That’s kind of disappointing.”

  “I can understand that,” she said.

  “Are you bothered by what you’re doing?”

  “Bothered? I don’t follow.”

  “I’m not spiritual, but I guess I still carry some fuzzy sense of God from childhood. I’m just wondering about religious people—those who claim to have spiritual experiences.” Like those who had flocked to my bedside for miracles. “Or even not-so-ordinary people, you know, shamans, mystics, priests, saints—Joan of Arc.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “You’re saying their claims of feeling God or seeing Jesus or whatever are no more than electrical discharges in the brain?”

  She played vague again. “Neuroscientists are interested in understanding the neurological basis of human experience.”

  “‘The Role of Serotonin … Receptors in Spirituality.’”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You’ve been checking.”

  “That’s right.” He had found a complete copy of her article online. “I’m just wondering if your theory doesn’t make you feel a little guilty.”

  “Guilty about what?”

  “I’m not religious, but I know people who are. And I respect their faith. I also think that with some people, religion fills a human need. It gets them through crises.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “My point is, were I doing what you and your colleagues are, I think I’d feel bad.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the object of your research seems to be the elimination of the divine from the universe, reducing it to brain chemistry.”

  For a microsecond, he felt the shuddering awareness of being in Winston Song’s head, reading his cards.

  “That’s quite a charge.”

  “But isn’t that what you’re doing—reducing spiritual highs and religious ecstasy to an endorphin rush?”

  Her face flushed, and he couldn’t tell if she was about to burst into tears or toss her coffee at him. She did neither but took a sip to collect her response.

  “That really isn’t my objective. In fact, elsewhere we applied the same diagnostics on self-proclaimed mystics—people who’d reported intense religious experiences, including Carmelite nuns. They gladly signed on and left feeling that their heightened experiences only confirmed their faith. When nuns were shown religious images—medieval paintings of Jesus, Michelangelo’s Pietà, the Vatican, et cetera—nearly every one of them said they felt the presence of God in the booth.”

  “So what’s your conclusion?”

  “That just because mystical experiences can be associated with specific neurological activity doesn’t mean those experiences are illusions. Likewise, nobody can say that the neurological activity you’re experiencing eating that muffin caused the muffin to exist.”

  He nodded. She had a point.

  Then she checked her watch and downed the rest of her coffee. “Gotta go.” She got up and put her bag over her shoulder. “See you Thursday.”

  He stood up and watched her hustle out the door, wondering just what this tryst was all about.

  33

  Zack could tell that something was different the moment he arrived at the lab that Thursday. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but a heightened sense of anticipation charged the air. Sarah regarded him with a little gleam in her eyes, and Dr. Luria’s birthmark was glowing. Stern’s and Cates’s faces were in a forced neutral mode, but he saw something in their manner as they met in Dr. Luria’s office.

  “Zack, the fMRI data the other day has been analyzed, and we’re rather impressed.”

  “Because I got emotional over a few old photos?”

  “Yes, in fact. Last week you asked about the nature of these tests, and we said that part of our investigation was the neurobiology of dreams. Well, the truth of the matter is that you fulfilled the requirements to proceed to the next level. Our concern is not so much with dreams or sleep per se, but with the subjective experience a person may have in a state of very deep sleep.”

  Zack sensed the careful wording, but the last three words hovered in the air like plovers.

  “We asked you back because the electrical activity in the temporal lobe is quite high, making you an ideal candidate for our investigation.”

  “So all that was just a screening.”

  “Yes, which most subjects don’t pass,” Luria said. “With your consent, we’d like to move to the next phase. We’d like to lower your metabolic activity so that your brain will be in a state of total repose, where the electrical activity is minimal.”

  “How minimal you talking?”

  Nobody responded for a moment. Then Dr. Luria said, “We’ll administer an anesthetic compound that will temporarily shut down the electrical activity of cell axons—the circuitry between brain cells. The individual cells will still be alive and healthy, of course. They’ll still have their enzymes, metabolisms, and ATP, adenosine triphosphate, which supplies energy to cells. But while you’re under, individual neurons will cease communicating with each other.”

  “You’re going to stop the electrical activity in my brain?”

  “The intercellular activity, and only for a short while. And as soon as we’re done, and you’re revived, cell communication will return.”

  It was as if his ears had suddenly cleared. “You’re talking about near-death experience.”

  “That’s the popular terminology.”

  “Like that movie Flatliners.”

  “But with a lot better results,” Sarah said.

  Dr. Luria continued. “We’re investigating the few moments of space between near death and real death, which is when brain cells begin to die. But because we’ll closely monitor cell activity, we know precisely when to stop before that happens. So it’s perfectly safe. We can guarantee that.”

  They stared at him—four big-deal scientists with fancy degrees, surrounded by fancy equipment and stacks of
fancy journals. He couldn’t believe what they were saying. “You want to flatline me just this side of death, then bring me back? How can you guarantee that?”

  “Because we’ve done it many times before. And because our methodology’s been through rigorous trials, first with mice, then higher primates. And, of course, humans.”

  Stern added, “We’ll be monitoring your blood pressure and heart rate—all your vital signs—very closely and can revive you almost at once. It’s perfectly safe, believe me.”

  “Has all this been approved by the FDA or whatever?”

  Luria nodded. “It’s been cleared by the State Medical Board.”

  “Then why the cover story about sleep studies?”

  “Because we don’t want the public knowing what we’re doing here. In fact, should you agree to proceed, we’ll ask you to sign a nondisclosure statement.”

  “But why?” Zack asked.

  “Because of our objectives.”

  “Which are?”

  “To see if there’s anything to claims of near-death experiences.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like an afterlife.”

  The coordinates of the room seemed to shift. “And I was hoping you’d cure my insomnia.”

  “The local drugstore can help you there,” Sarah said. “What we’re doing is looking to see if there’s anything that lies beyond or if all the claims are reducible to neurobiology.”

  “But you’re asking my consent to kill me.”

  “Not at all,” Stern said. “Zack, we’ve developed a wonderful sedative that safely simulates brain death. In other words, we’ll fool your brain’s electrochemistry into thinking it’s terminal. You’ll effectively enter a flatline state for a few minutes, then we’ll give you a stimulant that immediately fires up full brain activity again.”

  He looked at Luria. “It will?”

  “Absolutely. There’s no way we’d endanger your life.”

  “But what if my brain really thinks it’s dying and begins to turn off the rest of me?”

  “That won’t happen,” Sarah said. “We’ll be monitoring you every moment.”