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Posted on 08/12/2013 3:05:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A man who suffered a stroke can no longer feel sadness because part of his brain was destroyed.
Malcolm Myatt, 68, who spent 19 weeks in hospital and lost he feeling in his left side, was told by doctors that the stroke had hit the frontal lobe of his brain, which controls the emotions.
He has since noticed a number of changes, including to his short term memory, but believes that the loss of sadness from his emotional repertoire is a positive. Experts have confirmed that it is not uncommon for strokes to cause psychological, emotional and behavioural changes.
The retired lorry driver said: "I am never depressed. Being sad wouldn't help anything anyway. I would definitely rather be happy all the time than the other way round. It's an advantage really. "The stroke could have become my worst enemy but I wouldn't let it. Now I barely even notice that I don't feel sadness.”
Many of the psychological changes that occur after a stroke are down to the physical damage of the brain, and will depend upon which part of the brain has been affected and the extent of the damage, The Stroke Association confirm.
Dr Clare Walton explained: “When a stroke strikes, the blood supply to the brain is cut off, brain cells die and permanent damage can be caused. Every stroke is different, and the area of the brain that’s damaged will determine how the person is affected.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The retired lorry driver said: “I am never depressed. Being sad wouldn’t help anything anyway. I would definitely rather be happy all the time than the other way round. It’s an advantage really.”
He was immediately approached by PETA to be their new “Euthanizer” to save all the poor pets from having “owners”.
They said that it would be a big plus to have someone who felt good about the work.
Realistically, I can’t see the loss of a major emotion as a plus.
They will try to develop a vaccine to kill that [part of the brain andf then put it in everyone’s food / water.
If no one gets sad about their country the power elite can control everything and the slaves will be very happy.... win-win for them, lose-lose for us serfs..
If no one gets sad about their country the power elite can control everything and the slaves will be very happy.... win-win for them, lose-lose for us serfs..
I think you have just hit on the new Matt Damon movie plot!
Wish the part of my brain that feels pain would die.
Ditto, darlin. Totally. I’ve had enough.
Emotions are what makes us human and humane.
Its something I’ve considered a lot in the course of doing mental push ups about downloading human intelligence into a computer or robot.
With advancements in brain mapping, we’ll soon unravel the biochemical mechanisms of all human emotion, demystifying the human experience, ultimately, and it’ll be dangerously bittersweet. This man can’t feel sad because that part of his brain dealing with it got damaged? What other emotions can be selectively activated / amplified or deactivated?
My 39-YO brother in law was diagnosed as type C bipolar and had been taking various medications to treat the disorder for the past few years. In May of this year, he suffered a stroke—only the ER in his town didn’t treat him for stroke (they were convinced he had some tropical infectious disease until an MRI showed that half of his brain had been decimated.) He will never again be able to read, write, drive a car, or have any meaningful employment. His short term memory is toast. The only upside: no longer bipolar. He’s been off the meds since mid-May.
Hillary Clinton has had strokes and she wants to be President.
One of my sisters had a stroke a year ago. She often cries now. A month or so ago, she thought it was 1980.
I'm not sure it works that way. We already know the biochemical mechanisms of elderberry (Sambucus nigra) flowering and fruiting, but I haven't found that it "demystifies" elderberries for me at all. I still find them full of unanswered questions, which become more numerous and the more evocative, the more I know.
What sort of get well card does one send in this case?
“Get Sad Soon!”?
Except that emotions are a tad different from elderberries, in the way they are mystified in the human experience. If someone underwent a treatment where that person’s ability to feel sadness / remorse is crippled, how will that affect the choices, responsibilities and “free will” of the said person?
Nah, “Brave New World” mostly covered it already. The police actually sprayed it (Soma) on people during riots.
Anyone who reaches adulthood under normal circumstances understands the restless vagaries of human affect, so sensitive to weather and sleeplessness and knocks on the head, and the responsiveness of passion to -- oh, alcohol and pictures of tits.
There's not a thing that neuroscience could uncover about endorphins and serotonin and the blood-brain barrier and the mapping of the lobes, which wasn't figured out, in the main, by the time of Qoheleth. Without all the techy details, he still grasped the contingency of all things human.
And what difference does that make? As soon as you finds out that a violin's sound is caused by drawing a horsehair over a catgut, does that "explain" Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for you? And if you further analyze Tchaikovsky’s synapses, does that "demystify" him?
Let me recommend this essay, The Quantum Brain: The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man , a review of the book "The Quantum Brain" by Jeffrey Satinover. It'll take you 5 minuites. If you want to do it in 3 minutes, skim down 2/5 of the page til you get to the paragraph beginning "His argument goes like this." Love you. Ta for now.
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