Daniel Amen

The unique ability of Dr Daniel Amen to link brain images to behavioral problems is inexplicable to a large section of the medical community. Dr.Amen has done path breaking work at the cutting edge of science in SPECT neuroimaging. He has documented links between SPECT images of neural activity and emotional problems such as depression, anxiety, temper, impulsiveness and obsession. After identifying these as “observable circuit problems,” he has successfully treated thousands of patients.

Yet, in spite of his patent success, many dispute his claims. While they sneer at a “picture” of “this is what your brain looks like on drugs,” Dr. Amen clearly perceives the links. Unfortunately, neuroimaging also has radiation risks. So, Dr Amen's opponents demand that the method should not be applied until the results are fully validated. In reality, it may be difficult to widely implement the SPECT route, since it may be more an art than a science. By discounting art, science may also be closing the door to a brilliant vision.

Daniel Amen - Specific Regions Perform Specific Functions
You can see "hints of the soul" in brain images. Visible activity in specific brain regions can definitely relate to specific brain functions. Science has volumes of research to show that specific regions of the cortex handle sensory inputs, recognition processes and motor outputs. As an example, recognition of touch sensory inputs are location specific. If the somesthetic association region is damaged, a patient cannot identify a pair of scissors by touch, even though he can feel the scissors. One region identifies touch and a different region identifies the touched object. Similarly, the olfactory region identifies an odor. While such identification and recognition regions are location specific, further processing happens all over the system. Accurate real time detection of event related brain activity may not always be feasible.

Daniel Amen - A Precise Pattern Recognition Path
The brain is a pattern recognition system, which receives and stores patterns from the environment, interprets those patterns and triggers emotions. Emotions focus on specific survival strategies. The motor system interprets emotions to output those strategies as behavioral responses. As such, distinctly different regions receive data, interpret it and trigger strategies for responses. Those emotional responses are interpreted by the whole system to produce motor outputs. The real time process acts globally.

Daniel Amen - Emotions Decide The Strategy
As the nervous system developed over millions of years, nature developed many strategies for survival, guided by an intuitive decision making system. The triune brain included reptilian, mammalian and human prefrontal sub-systems. The reptilian system generated primitive responses to hunger and thirst. The olfactory system, added approach and avoidance behaviors, based on odors. Anger and fear signals from the amygdala triggered appropriate behavioral responses. The septal regions motivated the system with rewards for specific behaviors. Higher social emotions like guilt and love brought more choices with the mammalian brain.

Daniel Amen - Emotions Dominate
While many strategies are evaluated, the brain makes a single choice. The cortical regions perceive and interpret, the limbic system triggers emotions and the prefrontal regions pass unemotional judgment. From myriad emotional options, the system selects a single family of emotions. Using intuition, the current emotion colors motor responses in a single hue in all functional regions within milliseconds. Acting globally, the nervous system responds to that group of emotions. Anger, fear, or love dominates the system and colors it in a single hue. Dr. Amen is able to identify abnormal variations of this hue.

Daniel Amen - Abnormal Activity In Some Regions
Some brain regions exhibit abnormal activity. While the dominant emotion acts globally, there can be abnormally reduced, or increased neural activity in a particular region. The system creates overactive “speed dial circuits,” under stress. Supported by LTP and neural plasticity, these regions exaggerate a single emotion through looping circuits. Subsystems, including the cingulate system, the limbic system, the basal ganglia, or the prefrontal regions can be affected by the dominant emotions. Excess activity in the limbic system entrains a single emotion, subduing all others. Abnormal activity in the basal ganglia authorizes the strategy of a single emotion to set off repetitive cycles of motor responses. Weakened neural activity in the prefrontal regions saps judgmental functions, which can prevent the onset of irrational emotions. While images of such abnormal activities can relate to problems created by conflicting emotions like anger, or fear, Dr. Amen is able to link those images to specific behavioral problems.

Daniel Amen - Links Abnormal Activity
Typically, Dr. Amen links sadness, moodiness and poor concentration to the deep limbic system. He links anxiety, panic and fear to the basal ganglia. He links hyperactivity and impulse control problems to the prefrontal regions. Actually, unruly emotions triggered by the limbic system cause all these problems. But “speed dial circuits” can entrain these emotions into the basal ganglia, or the cingulate system. A weak prefrontal region can prevent the delivery of realistic contextual emotions by the limbic system. This can cause the lack of perseverance, attributed by Dr. Amen to poor prefrontal activity. While several regions are involved in any decision process, entrained emotions in any region can cause problems. Dr. Amen links reduced, or excess activity in a specific region to a particular problem. Since such abnormalities can also cause other problems, his critics accuse him of “being able to read the soul in a picture of the brain.”

Daniel Amen - Recognize His Pattern Recognition Skills
Dr. Amen has amazing pattern recognition competence in reading the implications of the SPECT images. Such recognition of subtle patterns is founded on immense experience. Having viewed thousands of images from the viewpoint of the relationship of the images to clinical problems, Dr. Amen sees relationships in patterns, which may not be obvious to even a highly skilled viewer. Another scientist may protest that there is no such link. A skilled tea taster can link a particular tea to the sunny slopes of a particular tea plantation. A less skilled person could argue forever that no such link exists. But, that cannot detract from the amazing success Dr. Amen has achieved in the use of brain imaging for clinical diagnosis or for the treatment of psychiatric disorders in patients. At the same time, the medical community may be right in arguing that less skilled practitioners could misuse the process for monetary gain.

This page was last updated on 31-Dec-2013

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Once, Decades Ago, I Tripped Over The Divine

For me, the flash of insight into the sublime happened way back in 1989. The vision stunned me with the grandeur of its simplicity. The startling prospect emerged from, of all things, an algorithm! Its potential flickered into my view by accident, while transferring a Prolog AI disease recognition procedure to a Lotus spreadsheet.  I had inadvertently reversed the logic of the Expert System, instructing it to eliminate improbabilities, instead of selecting probabilities. Such algorithms are just repetitive procedures. Cold and logical lines of code. But, they yield dependable results. Algorithms are just mechanical tools. But, this algorithmic code was unique.

The capability of the algorithm was that it could sift a Google sized database of connected facts to instantly recognize patterns. This was 10 years before Google started building its vast data warehouses. But, I knew the mind identified complex patterns when you just opened your eyes!  For the next few months, glimpses of probable neural accomplishments through instant pattern recognition kept waking me up at 3 a.m. I kept adding to the list on paper. The dots just kept connecting. Decades later, more possible links keep opening up new horizons - say, the seat of consciousness or the persistence of working memory. This algorithm could distinguish between good and evil. It could make us weep in anguish or gasp in wonder.  Could it be the fabled divine gift to life?

It worked in the mind. Gray's Anatomy was an exhaustive source and a starting point for me. Its 1500 pages listed the functions of virtually every mental organ. The algorithm could link them all into a single mind that could suture an artery, while recalling a tennis match. Starting at the input level, it focused your senses. The light from the heavens. The songs of the birds. The touch of a loved one. The fragrance of a rose. The taste of chocolate. We were blessed with millions of receptors, which flashed this magnificent perception of the world to the sensory regions of our cortex. There were association regions there, which could use the algorithm on this data to identify a pencil, or a word. We could separate the idea of a gun from the idea of a war in the abundance of incoming sensory patterns.

Object and event recognition. Algorithmic pattern recognition could act at every stage of mental processing. Things were happening all around us. There was a limbic system, where the algorithm could identify between good and bad happenings. It generated emotions. This mammalian region could drive us to attack in anger, or flee in terror. It was the limbic system, which held us in thrall. It filled us with despair, or tortured us in grief. It made us question the very meaning of life. Life was so unfair. Why did we have to suffer so?

Sadly, we lacked the capacity to naturally see our emotions and feelings. The limbic system was invisible to us. It was the algorithm, which caused the motor system to transform those emotions and feelings into actions. Hunger made us raid the frig. We went to work every day to avoid the pain of guilt. Love reminded us to pick up children from school. Hatred built the death camps. In the end, urges from the limbic system drove us out of Eden.

As a precious compensation, algorithmic pattern recognition ascended to higher levels. Our prefrontal regions gifted us with science and logic. Those skills enabled us to understand the vast structures of the cosmos. We built leviathans, which could sail the oceans and fly the skies. We explored the heavens. Our powerful civilizations conquered the continents and explored the cosmos. Even more, the algorithm also pointed us to the divine, which defied logic and definition. We sensed the order and beauty, which, like the laws of nature, existed from the beginning of time.

Pattern recognition dealt with subtleties. Reason and logic could not create great symphonies, or works of art. Why do we stand in awe of the sunset? Or find joy in a lilting song, or in the laugh of a baby?  Nerve cells recognized such patterns without our awareness and fired to initiate the skin tingling thrill. Who, but the Designer, could possibly want to hard wire us to thrill to the astonishing splendor of the design?

Over three decades have passed since my first glimpse of the truth. Like an ancient city hidden by forest cover, the vast and invisible city of the mind has many avenues linking its great palaces and temples. I also realized that those divine pattern recognition paths led to still spaces, untrammelled by the ravages of emotions and feelings.... Life was worth living! Even the great sages of the past advised us to still passions to empower the sublime within us. The divine stillness lives at the core. You too can find your home there.

The information provided in this website is useful for the modification of normal behavioral patterns. Please do get professional help, before applying the advice for the treatment of any abnormal behaviors. Copyright ©2008 by Ebbi Thomas. All rights reserved. This material may be freely published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.