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OTHER NEWS Being exposed to new experiences improves memory, according to a study MADRID (EUROPA PRESS) Being exposed to new experiences improves memory, according to research carried out by University College London (United Kingdom), published in the journal “Neuron”. The study concludes that when completely new circumstances are presented during learning, memory performance improves. The results may be used in future treatment of memory problems. Brain Scans Of The Future. July 1, 2007 (www.sciencedaily.com) - "Psychologists have found that thought patterns used to recall the past. |
The human brain is not designed for happiness MADRID, 11 (Europa Press) – “The human brain, product of 700 million years of evolution, is not designed to attain happiness”, according to professor Francisco Mora, director of the Human Physiology Department of the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid and participant of the “In no man’s land” series organized by the Health Sciences Foundation and the Students Residence. According to a statement given by the Foundation today, the main cause of unhappiness in the human being would lie in the limbic system, or emotional brain, a structure that manages emotional responses to sensory stimuli. “It is in the emotional brain that all the information we receive from the external world through the senses becomes saturated with emotional nuances, of pleasure or pain, what really prevents us from being happy”, explains the expert, for whom, ultimately, the brain is designed to “fight for survival”. However, unlike animals, “the human being, whose brain weighs about one and a half kilos and has an extremely complex functional organization, has glimpsed his own consciousness”. This circumstance leads the individual to consider two avenues to attain happiness: One of them consists in maintaining the balance between pleasure and pain, as “both extremes result in unhappiness”; and the other one, “more drastic and perhaps more authentic, consists in isolating oneself from the world, avoiding interaction with it and allowing sensory information to reach the brain’s emotional centre”. ISOLATING ONESELF FROM THE WORLD TO BE HAPPY This second avenue would be reached by the idea of God and prayer or meditation.”He who in the midst of pleasure does not feel desire (…) He who has abandoned all impulse, fear or anger (…) He that does not hate nor sadden (…) Him, is in full possession of happiness or wisdom”, emphasized professor Mora, with a quote from the Mahabharata, an Indian book on religion, philosophy and mythology. In turn, writer Luis Muñoz, with a BA in Hispanic and Romanic Philology from the University of Granada, stressed that, from the perspective of literature, “it is easier to write about unhappiness” because this state “entails the need to alleviate the pain it produces, something that can be easily done through poetic language”. “Happiness does not need any kind of writing because of its irreflexive condition”, he stated. “The language of poetry better expresses unhappiness than happiness, for it has more verbal resources for the first and especially attracts unhappy times”, he added. This would explain, amongst other things, why this theme has permeated so many poems since the origins of the genre, which “is nothing more than proof of sensitivity or intelligence”, he concluded. |