Shrooms (2007)

If you are a God-loving American catholic schoolgirl, it must be that nothing seems better than heading into an Irish forest with a group of friends to ingest some highly potent hallucinogenic mushrooms. Or at least, that’s one of those ideas that seem good until you start having seizures, visions, premonitions, and your friends keep wandering off and getting their limbs mangled while you keep waking up disoriented and covered in blood. But of course, that won’t happen to you, right? That’s what all the kids say.

The infamous psychologist Timothy Leary celebrated hallucinogens. For him ‘magic mushrooms’ were a natural supplement to any investigation into the self.  (For those interested, you can check out his ‘classic’ literature here, and don’t forget the hard-to-find but worth-while album here).  Though Timothy Leary’s Tune in, Turn on, Drop out crusade was highly criticized (and he eventually left Harvard to pontificate elsewhere), psychological and neuroscientific research has seen a recent surge of interest in those little mescal buttons.

Research into the effects of psilocybin is providing insight into how this drug affects the brain, producing its characteristic hallucinations and other-worldly perceptions. For instance, a well-publicized recent research article reports in detail the changes in brain activation while ‘under the influence’ of hallucinogens. In this study, the researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to observe the brain while participants were—ahem-- ‘tripping’.  The participants were not given a specific task, instructed instead to simply ‘relax’. The results showed that, rather than sporadically exciting a diversity of brain areas (as the subjective experience of a drug trip might suggest), or throwing subjects into violent black-out states (as silly slasher films like to imply), the drug actually reduced activity in the hubs that coordinate activity across important brain regions—regions that other research has implicated in maintaining consciousness and creating feelings of the self.

Because of the ability of this drug to deactivate these ‘hub’ centers, the authors suggest that mushrooms may be useful in helping people with depression overcome their rigid, negative thoughts by loosening the maladaptive connections that the hubs maintain. Whether or not this is the case remains to be determined, but it is certainly clear that we will hear lots more about the neuroscience of drug trips in the near future—though we doubt that they’ll explain why some catholic schoolgirls tend to walk around strange Irish forests with hatchets. 

More on Shrooms (2007) here

References:

Carhart-Harris, R.L., Erritzoe, D., Williams, T., Stone, J.M., Reed, L.J., Colasanti, A., Tyacke, R.J., Leech, R., Malizia, A.L., Murphy, K., Hobden, P., Evans, J., Feilding, A., Wise, R.G., & Nutt, D.J. (2012). Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(6), 2138-2143.

MacDonald, P. & Walpole, R. (Producers), Breathnach, P. (Director). (2007). Shrooms [Motion picture]. Ireland: Vertigo Films(UK). 

Patrick (1978)

The eponymous character of the film Patrick (1978) sure is in a tough spot-- until he decides to kill his mother and her lover by electrocuting them in the bathtub! But this doesn't solve much, as he soon finds himself deep in a coma without a chance of recovery, kept alive only by the most advanced technology and by the grand scientific aspirations-- or sadistic machinations-- of a doctor interested in the moment living things stop living. With no hope of recovery, many of us might abhor the idea of living as a vegetable for three years, probed and prodded endlessly for science; but then again, most of us will not develop telekinetic powers with which to torment our science-minded overlords, tossing them from windows or drowning them in their own pools!

In 1978, diagnosing a vegetative state was difficult in the best of cases, and it continues to challenge doctors today. Interestingly, recent advancements in neuroscience are revealing that people might posses more awareness than was historically thought. Misapplication of a ‘vegetative state’ diagnosis can be serious, and may potentially result in the treatment of coma patients as vegetative when they are actually capable of some degree of perception or awareness, including understanding speech. 

Researchers have recorded electrical changes in coma patients' brains and while giving them commands to imagine motor movements of their right-hand or toes. Surprisingly, in some of the patients tested (19%), the electroencephalogram (i.e., the measurements of brain activity) showed that these patients were indeed imagining the motor movements, and they were responding to verbal commands in ways similar to neurologically healthy control participants. Importantly, by looking at the brain’s response to different commands, the researchers were able to determine that some vegetative patients are aware, retaining some aspects of normal cognitive functioning. Does this change the way we think about comas? Certainly. Alas, however, the development of telekinetic powers has not been detected in coma patients (or in patients that are completely aware for that matter – but see our post on “Red Mist” for a fun fake neuroscientific explanation of telekinesis!). 

More on Patrick (1978)

More on awareness in vegetative state

References:

Cruse, D., Chennu, S., et al. (2011). Bedside detection of awareness in the vegetative state: a cohort study. The Lancet, 378(9809), 2088-2094.

Franklin, R. & Ginnane, A. (Producers), Franklin, R.  (Director). (1978). Patrick [Motion picture]. Australia: Filmways Australasian. 

Faces in the Crowd (2011)

Milla Jovovich takes a break from blasting off zombie heads in the popular Resident Evil series to take on the roll of victim and hero Anna Marchant in the recently released Faces in the Crowd (2011). A horror-thriller we simply had to see, Faces in the Crowd adopts as its premise a very uncommon yet well studied neuropsychological phenomena- -that of face blindness or ‘Prosopagnosia’. In the film, Anna Marchant’s simple life is suddenly shaken when she unwittingly stumbles across an elusive serial murderer engaged in a diabolical deed. Facing (heh) the infamous killer, she attempts to flee but falls off a bridge, hitting her head on the way down. She survives the fall and emerges from the hospital as the only living person to have seen the killer. Naturally, she becomes a valuable resource to the authorities investigating the serial killer’s case. The problem, however, is that she can no longer recognize faces! Such a curious deficit allows the writers of Faces in the Crowd (2011) to introduce all sorts of high adrenaline hjinks in which Anna is hunted by an assailant she has seen but can no longer recognize.

Prosopagnosia is a neuropsychological impairment that results from damage to the temporal lobe of the brain—a region that appears to be specialized for processing objects and faces. Commonly, patients with prosopagnosia can see just fine—there is no problem with vision. In fact, they can continue to recognize objects by sight, and often don’t have a problem recognizing people by their voices or bodily movements. This bizarre condition seems to be specific the visual recognition of people’s faces. Indeed, they can tell the thing they are looking at is a face but can’t tell whose face it is.  It is as though they are unable to put all the parts—the eyes, the nose, the mouth—together in a unified, integrated perception. Some patients have even reported the curious inability to recognize themselves in a mirror! For most of us, this phenomenon is particularly difficult to imagine and we’re not sure how useful Faces in the Crowd is at providing first-person insight into this bizarre deficit (example here); unlike Anna Marchant’s problem, for instance, prosopagosics are not challenged with an ever changing stream of actors. Despite this, Faces in the Crowd does encourage us to reflect on the remarkable ability of the brain to distinguish and recognize people by their faces, a skill that seems to rely on specialized neural circuits and one that is so effortless we take for granted. As the psychiatrist in the film emphasizes, “faces are the barcode of the human race”, and this is something that deficits like prosopagnosia reveal in staggering detail. 

For more on the science of prosopagnosia, see here

For more on Faces in the Crowd (2011) see here

References:

DeWalt, K et al. (Producers), Magnat, J. (Director). (2011).Faces in the Crowd [Motion picture]. United States: Forecast Pictures

The Experiment (2010)

In recognition of the 40^th anniversary of the Stanford Prison Experiment, we decided to watch the relatively recent film The Experiment (2010), an American remake of the famed Das Experiment (2001). Both films are based loosely on events that transpired during a historic week in the basement of a Stanford University building. In the Prison study, now a classic in the annals of psychology, people were recruited from the surrounding community, and assigned to role-play as ‘guards’ or ‘prisoners’ in a mock jail. The participants were given a set of rules to follow, based on their assigned role, in order to facilitate the atmosphere of the jail. Though the researchers planned on running the study for two weeks, the experiment was terminated after only six days as the participants unexpectedly adopted their roles too thoroughly. The ‘guards’ began to abuse the ‘prisoners’, demeaning and humiliating them, and dehumanizing them viciously. Over the course of just 6 days, ‘prisoners’ lost their sense of will and independence, and became depersonalized and depressed. The original study is famed for its demonstration that, when it comes to overt behavior, regular, law-abiding everyday people are capable of terrible things under the influence of certain situational factors. Though the Stanford Prison experiment is not without criticism, decades of psychological research shows that one thing is clear: ‘good’ people can do ‘bad’ things.

The plot of the film follows the recorded events relatively faithfully, but introduces unexpected themes of ‘survival’, ‘evolution’, and ‘instinct’ (what do these clips of eels fighting and dead puppies have to do with anything?) The most unfortunate thing about The Experiment (2010), however, is that it overlooks the critical conclusion of the Stanford Prison experiment, and one that we, in assessing the behaviour of others, frequently lose sight of— often, a person’s behaviour is more attributable to the demands of a situation than personal dispositions. Indeed, even well-adjusted, psychologically stable individuals are capable of shocking behavior under certain social pressures. The film however, prefers to attribute the malice and abuse to a few ‘crazy’ individuals in need of psychological help, bent on fulfilling sadistic desires that they harbour within dark places inside their twisted minds. A recurring theme in the film is the notion that humans are exceptional, and differ from other animals when it comes to violence: “Still think we’re higher on the evolutionary chain than monkeys?” asks an ex-con to prisoner 77 (played by Adrien Brody). “Yea, because we can still do something about it”, he replies, and looks off with an air of nobility.  Though we do not wish to open this bag of philosophical worms here, we do want to point out that The Experiment (2010) fails at addressing its inspiration’s true message. To make matters worse, at the end of the film we feel passionate about our moral strengths, as thought they are handed to us from divine sources, rather than feeling more compassionate towards the guards and prisoners who both suffered psychologically because of the despicable situation they found themselves in. 

More on The Experiment (2010) here

More on Das Experiment (2001) here

More on the Stanford Prison Experiment here

References:

Adelstein, M. (Producer), Scheuring, P. (Director). (2010).The Experiment [Motion picture]. United States: Stage 6 films.

From Beyond (1986)

Aaaaaahhhhhh the pineal gland -- considered the seat of the soul by the great French philosopher Descartes, (the one who famously stated  “Cogito ergo sum" --I think, therefore I am). Known for its central location in the brain (almost in the middle, buried deep behind our forehead) and its lack of symmetry (to the naked eye there is only one of them) this cute little structure has long received the attention of philosophers and scientists interested in the mind. For Descartes, this was the window through which the ephemeral, intangible mind could interact with the body, and exert control or influence over the material world. This concept served a central purpose in Descartes’ Dualist (i.e., duality between mind and body) theories about consciousness. After all, without a portal to the physical world, how could the mind instruct the body to do all of the things it does? Alas, however, modern neurophysiology has humbled this tiny structure, discovering instead it is responsible for regulating hormones important for a host of behaviours, including the sleep-wake cycle and sexual development. Hormonal regulation and not a mind-material portal? Ho-hum.

 

The relationship between the pineal gland and sexual development is exploited in the hysterical plot of From Beyond (1986), in which Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) discovers, via magnetic stimulation, that the pineal gland is literally a “third-eye”, allowing him to peer into a dimension of sexual awakening, Freudian metamorphoses, and florescent lights, apparently! Not that we --ahem-- mind! The film takes us on a multi-dimensional adventure, and though its explorations of sexuality and brain anatomy are questionable, the dialogue makes us squirt milk through our noses, the effects are bedazzling, and we find ourselves groping at our foreheads, wondering what depraved horrors that cute little structure is hiding from us.

More on From Beyond (1986) here:

IMDB

For more on the pineal gland visit:

Wikipedia

References:

Yuzna, B. (Producer), Gordon, S. (Director). (1986). From Beyond [Motion picture]. United States: MGM Home Entertainment.

Expand your goretex

"Why don't you write about movies people have actually SEEN?"


Further to this criticism we have faced, the blog now includes a list of links to websites where we find movie recommendations (BoulevardMovies.com is particularly good for finding obscure movies to purchase on DVD)! Now you can see them all too (including the particularly delightful Italian romp, "Anthropophagus", previewed in the above photo).

They Live (1988)

John Carpenter got something right when he conceived of They Live (1988), and the formula was simple: start with snarky, dark, commentary about class structure in American society, add some criticism of authority, and top it off with the on-screen antics of—who else?—Rowdy Roddy Piper, and you have a tantalizing foray into the public’s conscious—or should we say unconscious? After donning specialty sunglasses that only the outrageously stylish 80’s could have produced, our main character finds himself staring his oppressive adversaries in the face—and discovers that they are controlling the population with subliminal instructions to ‘obey’ and ‘consume’! A startling idea, to be sure. 

Though the central idea of subliminal mind control is not original, it does allow us to address the very important question of subliminal perception, and to ask the question ‘Just how much can the brain process outside of our awareness?’ Well, it’s clear that the brain can and does process a lot of information that we can’t necessarily consciously report (e.g. words and pictures). For instance, researchers will often present pictures or words for very short durations on a computer screen and measure whether people report seeing them. Interestingly, researchers can predict whether a person is likely to report seeing an image by examining what parts of the brain are active and to what extent (e.g., areas involved in sensory processing, as well as ‘higher-association’ areas that allow us to recognize complex shapes and word meanings are more active during conscious perception; see Dehaene et al, 2006).

However, it is unclear just how effective instructions like ‘obey’ would be at initiating obedience in people. After all, if people are unlikely to obey when told explicitly, why would they be any more likely to do so aren’t consciously aware of the instruction? Though our brain is capable of processing many things in the environment without our direct awareness, we are confident that we need not fear hostile takeover by an alien race that happens to like our brand of Western wealth and elitism. Just be careful about your choice of sunglasses.

Check out They Live here:

Wikipedia

More info on subliminal stimuli

References:

Dehaene, S., et al (2006). Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: A testable taxonomy. Trends in Cognitive Science, 10, 5, 204-211.

Franco, LJ (Producer), Carpenter, J. (Director). (1988). They Live [Motion picture]. United States: Universal Studios.