Introduction

I remember sitting on the shore in a hidden place near Giron Beach on the Zapata Peninsula. Antonio had driven us there after promising to show us one of the most alluring coastal areas in Cuba.

He was not exaggerating. The natural setting was amazing. It was steeped in complete tranquility. The ocean appeared solemn. “It couldn’t get any better,” I thought to myself. Then Antonio offered me some swimming goggles. “Thank you, Antonio, but I don’t really want to swim right now. I’m not very coordinated in the water, and I just don’t feel like it. Besides, the landscape is perfect.” Antonio insisted, and he finally convinced me. I put on the goggles and began to walk along the beach without any great expectations, except finding a small distraction for a while. I didn’t have any idea what was out there, waiting for me. As soon as I put my head under the water, my eyes opened wide in utter astonishment. The rock on which I had been sitting was bursting with precious coral. All kinds of colorful fishes swam around me. When I turned my head, I spotted a turtle slowly gliding away, less than 25 yards from me. I don’t recall how long I spent observing this unexpected vista, but I’ll never forget my reaction as I left the water: how could this marvel of nature have been so close while I was completely unaware of it? How could I have come so close to missing it? I don’t know how many times I thanked Antonio for insisting that I take the goggles, and for showing me a world that I never knew existed. When I turned again to gaze at the ocean, it still seemed amazing, but I was no longer satisfied with just observing its surface.

This experience reflects the same enthusiasm I feel for science. For me, science is the goggles that allow us to investigate inside the Universe’s structure, discover the microscopic world, explore within the human brain, understand our behavior, and enjoy all of the complexity and splendor that nature holds. Without science, we wouldn’t even be aware of the existence of these treasures.

Intellectually, we are living in an astounding time in history. Scientists are finding answers to a myriad of profound questions. However, above all, they are finding new and troubling mysteries to spark our restless curiosity. And, believe me, it would be a shame to miss out on them. A life without science is comparable to a life without music. It might also be wonderful, but there’s no doubt you’d be missing the opportunity to receive one of life’s greatest gifts. In order to enjoy science you don’t need sophisticated language or in-depth prior knowledge, only a receptive mind. That’s why I would like to imitate Antonio and propose that we put on our science goggles, and that you join me on an expedition to the frontiers of the latest scientific thinking. Not knowing how to snorkel or scuba dive is no excuse; rather, it’s extra motivation.

Let’s not waste more time away from the explosion of knowledge that awaits us. Throw yourself head first into exploring this fascinating sea of science!

I wrote this text in August 2007, during one of the most exciting times of my life. The scientific immersion that I was about to experience was really unique. I had just been selected as one of ten science journalists who would spend one year in Boston on a Knight Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with the only objective being to fill our brains with as much science as possible. We were going to attend private seminars with the top researchers at MIT and Harvard. We could audit any class that interested us, interview scientists, dive into their laboratories, and attend as many lectures and events as we wanted. We were given total freedom. The purpose was to update our scientific knowledge and to convey to the world what fascinated us about these issues in a more efficient way. It was a treat. I had to find a way to be organized in this endeavor, because an inefficient brain would not be able to store so much specific information; disorganization would result in missing or distorting these lessons. I had to store the information in a safe place and share it with the largest number of minds possible. A vague idea transformed into a challenging mission: to collect all the insights and lessons accumulated during my previous years as a science journalist, add to them the invaluable information that I was about to receive in the next nine months, and compile it into a book about the fabulous world of science. The excitement I felt was overwhelming. I embarked on this challenge with great enthusiasm. However, after a few weeks, I came to realize that the plan was not working. I spent too much time at home, missing extraordinary scientific lectures. Then someone gave me some clever advice: “write a blog.” A blog would allow me to share the information in a fast, fresh, direct, and widespread manner; to expand on the themes that most interested me; and also to receive readers’ immediate feedback. Writing “Scientific Notes from MIT” for elpais.com was wholly fulfilling, and it still is today. The first and very heartfelt acknowledgement goes to all the readers, whose names, pseudonyms, links to personal websites, messages, or anonymous writings from around the world have accompanied me and encouraged me to keep pouring out ownerless ideas in search of other minds. Unlike food, sharing information doesn’t mean dividing it, but rather multiplying it.

During my scientific adventure at Cambridge, the blog was an invaluable companion, an added motivation not to skip any lectures, and the best reason to follow another great piece of advice given to me during the MIT fellowship. “Scratch where it doesn’t itch” would become the leitmotif of the second half of this book, a motto meaning that you should allow yourself to be seduced by new interests, maintain a constant atmosphere of investigating the unknown, and let curiosity guide your learning. This was the real reason behind “Scientific Notes from MIT.” However, at times I felt frustrated by the amount of intellectual stimulation being thrown my way. On the one hand, I didn’t have time to put all the ideas I was coming across in the blog, and, on the other, there were issues that could not be properly tackled in a mere 1000-word entry. I believe my subconscious was saying: “The right time will arrive…” That time clearly materialized in the autumn of 2008 when, with a certain nostalgia, I began to review my notebooks from classes, seminars, and interviews. When I saw how many letter “B”s I had noted down as possible new ideas for blog entries, I was confident that this was the right moment to write a book. Finally, I could tackle those insights with the depth that they deserved and look for a coherent way to present them. To this end, I focused on three of my greatest obsessions. The first was to contextualize the information, show any precedents that frame a given scientific study, and look at the stories that converge there. I wanted to know what made this particular information special. The second obsession I cultivated at MIT was acting as a promiscuous and shameless brain snatcher, seizing all the knowledge that some exceptional minds had taken years to accumulate. When I interviewed a scientist I always insisted: “Don’t just give me information that I can find on the Internet. Tell me about what you’re working on now, even if it’s not yet published. Divulge what most intrigues you in your field, what will be news in one, five, ten years, and share your ideas on this front.” However, my third obsession is probably the most important one. In order to share my treasure, I needed to translate it into the most colloquial and natural writing possible. If not, my efforts would be in vain.

For this reason, I have attempted to make the texts in this book simple, fresh, and somewhat informal, avoiding too much detail when that could lead to a reader disengaging. I’m aware that in some parts of the book you may want to know more, and you might wish I had pursued the scientific thread of the story even further. If you have this impression, I see that more as a success than a failure. I don’t want your appetite to be sated with just one dish, regardless of how delicious it may be; there is a very wide buffet to sample, and I hope this book has the wicked effect of leaving you hungrier for more science. If reading these pages sparks your interest in a topic and you are driven to search for more information on your own, then I count this as a great success. It is also possible that you will not find some basic definitions of scientific concepts, due to my fear of becoming too wordy. Not to upset the purists out there, but these definitions are not as essential as you might think, and the book works perfectly well without them. If, before entering a contemporary art exhibit, you were forced to read wise accounts on how to better appreciate the works being displayed, you might turn around and walk out. Enjoy the view, and if you don’t know for certain what a gene or a nucleotide is, you can try to imagine it on your own. I’m convinced you’ll figure it out from the context, you’ll make it fit the story, and you’ll make it your own concept. Don’t fear or have undue respect for science; make it your own.

I have to admit that it’s difficult to go out for a drink with me without me talking about some scientific anecdote that I’m thinking about on that particular day. I tend to do this so often that I’ve deduced a few things: all people with a minimum amount of curiosity take great interest in science. With the exception of those who work eleven hours a day in the field, there are very few people who, after mentioning the word “neuron” or “quark,” don’t want to hear more about them. However, the attention span for these subjects has a limit. In a face-to-face conversation, it’s easy to perceive when it’s time to change the subject or change its focus. In a book, this is much more difficult to gauge. For this reason, if you find that, despite my best intentions, one part is becoming too tedious… Skip it! Be intellectually promiscuous. You might come back to it, but don’t let anyone bore you, not even me.

Returning to the art museum comparison: no one is interested in visiting a gallery that displays mediocre paintings, or indeed scuba diving in murky waters. Likewise, here we discuss marvels of science, tackle the most stimulating issues, pay attention to the top scientific publications, and select the best books out there. We are not trying to idealize science here. As with any human endeavor, scientific research has its guts. In order to infuse this work with a certain sense of reality, in some chapters we will visit contaminated seas and lose our innocence, subtly endowing us with a critical perspective on science and the people who create it. I owe this suspicious and somewhat condescending attitude to the second group of people I would like to acknowledge in this introduction: my fellow journalists John, Ivan, Julie, Jonathan, Keith, Molly, Kathy, Catherine, Esta, Zarina, Pam, and our illustrious director Boyce Rensberger of the fantastic Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program at MIT, where I learned more —on every level— than in any other period in my life. I will never forget that time or the people who accompanied me there. The list of scientists and friends who I should mention here is endless, and I’m sure I would seem unfair by forgetting to name more than one of them. But I have a good excuse to pick the physicist Roberto Guzman de Villoria and the neuroscientists Miquel Bosch and Victoria Puig for sharing their friendship with me, as well as their knowledge with my blog. Members of the Euroclub, companions and waiters of the Miracle of Science and the River Gods: I toast “last call” with you once again. Without leaving the United States, I also want to say thanks to my bosses and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health Office of Communication in Washington, D.C. for their flexibility and trust. What I learned during my escapades into the labs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda is very much present in this book. Thank you Calvin, Sylvia, and the scientists of this tremendous institution.

The professional experience I’ve gained outside of Spain has been intense and gratifying, but I wouldn’t have arrived at MIT without the invaluable learning I gained from those who really were the principal contributors to my formal education. Working for five years directly with Eduard Punset and being editor for two years on the television program Redes, which sought to disseminate science in the Spanish language, transformed an adventure into a profession for me. My most deepest and sincerest thanks to Eduard for giving me this opportunity, and for trusting a young biochemist from Tortosa, educated at the University of Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain who arrived at his office with no experience but plenty of enthusiasm. And I give thanks to “enthusiasm” itself, because in important moments it’s what really counts. As for my ex-colleagues at Redes, I come up against the same problem as with my friends from Boston: it would be impossible to mention them all. However, Miriam Pelaez cannot be left out of this book. She represents them all.

The acknowledgments become even more complicated when you leave the professional sphere and begin to think of those who have shared your passion for science. Acting as representatives for my dear and never-forgotten group of friends: to Maite, for opening her eyes so wide whenever I spoke of the expansion of the Universe; to Ramon, for insisting that I first think of images and then text (someday, I’ll take his advice); to David, for suggesting that we go diving with Antonio; and to the philosopher Elies, for showing up at my apartment in the old town of Tarragona with Moscatel wine, eager to share it along with my almonds, while discussing the science books that he brought me, and the videos of a science program that was broadcast early Sunday mornings, and that I ended up watching with pen and notebook in hand.

Marta… Our paths separated just before the beginning of this book, but I wouldn’t have arrived here without the marvelous years we spent together. This book, as well as its author, will never forget you.

A beautiful economist with an Italian accent has been present during the second part of this book. Thanks, Fazia, for your advice, for beingmylove, for showing me that life is like a movie, and for letting me act in it with you, with a script full of suspense, action, humor, sensuality, intrigue, surrealism, and romanticism.

And, finally, thanks for the tremendous support and unconditional affection I’ve always received from Jaume, Consol, Ana, and my marvelous parents Pepita and Pere. It is with you that I feel most proud to share this book.

We shouldn’t waste any more time. Now let’s dive into the sea of science!

THE BRAIN RESEARCHING ITSELF

1

Science Addict

Maybe it started while solving physics problems in high school, or maybe when I synthesized my first polymer while doing organic chemistry experiments, or perhaps it was when feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the immunological system while getting my degree in biochemistry, or one of the times I was amplifying DNA fragments for my unfinished doctoral thesis, or while reading books about the elegance of the Universe and the egoism of genes. In any case, at some point in my life I realized that my mind harbored a peculiarity: When I consumed science, the neurons of my nucleus accumbens received more dopamine than what is considered the norm.

The nucleus accumbens is the real pleasure center of the brain. When you eat, drink, make love, play a sport, or undertake any activity that allowed your ancestors to survive and leave descendants, you are compensated with a sensation of instant wellbeing. The prize is what incites us to repeat said activity whenever possible. This compass for our survival is located in the deepest part of our brains, in a group of primitive structures called the limbic system whose primary function is to let us know, through emotions, the things that we find positive, what we should fear, what smells should be repulsive to us, or what we should be sad about. Later, thanks to our modern cerebral cortex, we can decide whether to pay attention to those warnings. But that primary instinct is the basic information, our starting point, encoded little by little throughout our long evolutionary history.

Everything stays in order as long as the part of the brain that works with the instincts and the rational part work as a team and neither one takes over. For a long time, I had this balance.

However, something strange happened to me a few years ago. During my stay in the United States as an MIT fellow, I was consuming strong doses of science in its purest form. I began to feel a level of satisfaction that was much greater than normal, while speaking with scientists, visiting their laboratories, exploring their work methods, discovering anecdotes and understanding complex phenomena. As this progressed, I started to need higher doses more often. In the deepest center of my brain, the neurons of the ventral tegmental area must have been secreting an unusually large amount of dopamine towards the nucleus accumbens, because I was constantly trying to be around sources of scientific knowledge. At the beginning, it didn’t seem to be a problem. I felt euphoric and delighted with lif­e. But I started to worry when I noticed that I was losing interest in normal, everyday activities. The rush to absorb as much science as possible made me eat mechanically, without any satisfaction. I abandoned recreational activities that used to distract me, and other types of non-scientific information seemed boring to me. Even the reproductive urge began to present itself on fewer occasions, and I found myself instead becoming stimulated during moments of scientific euphoria.

I was hooked. My brain was generating a dependency to science. Overwhelmed by the elevated levels of dopamine being secreted, the neurons of the pleasure circuits had reduced their amount of cellular receptors so I wouldn’t feel a constant state of satisfaction. The emotional compass only works properly when it alternates moments of wellbeing and uncertainty; otherwise, there would not be any way to guide us. The consequence was that science became the only thing that was able to give me any real pleasure. I was becoming a science addict.

If someone had analyzed my brain’s activity at that moment with neuroimaging techniques, they might have observed the same thing that occurs to those who are in love or addicted to gambling when they are shown photographs of their partner or of slot machines —or in my case, science. Brain activity increases in the areas related to desire and decreases in those involved in self-control, decision-making, and rational interpretation of the surrounding environment.

All right, I accept that perhaps my brain is using that old trick of elevating certain experiences from the past and that I’m exaggerating my memories. Even in the most exciting moments of my scientific explorations, the pleasure I felt when entering a lab would not be so different from the pleasure experienced by a soccer fan when going to a stadium, an art aficionado when exploring a new museum, or a foodie when visiting a new restaurant.

It’s likely that this problem only got to the point of becoming an obsession at a few specific moments. However, I thought this candid reconstruction of the addiction process would be a good analogy to examine some of the ways in which the brain is studied, something I will be discussing further in the pages of this book that lie ahead.

In one sense, the pleasure or reward circuitry of the brain is an evolutionary vestige that shows how natural selection has been conditioning not only our bodies, but also our behavior, reviving the eternal debate of to what point we control our actions.

Furthermore, understanding the chemicals that regulate our cerebral activity has led us to design drugs like Prozac, which block the canals of serotonin uptake at the ends of the neurons in an effort to increase the amount of this neurotransmitter in the synaptic area and decrease sadness in patients suffering from depression. There is no doubt that, in the near future, we will go even further, and neuropharmacology will allow us to design substances that not only repair damaged brains, but also increase the capabilities of healthy ones. The concept of normal is being called into question.

The other great revolution arrived along with our capacity to observe the brain functioning in real time. Besides being used for medical applications, functional magnetic resonance imaging scans are being used to research the deepest part of our personalities. Some people predict that the ever-more-precise images of brain activity could be used to measure our fitness for certain types of jobs, to predict the types of products we’ll buy, to detect inappropriate behavior, or even to acquit us in a trial when there is scientific proof that our bad deed was not voluntary, but the product of defective cerebral programming.

This is not science fiction. After many centuries of studying the brain, we now have tools that allow us to understand the basis of our behavior, as well as to predict and modify it.

In the following chapters, I will explore where this neurosociety might take us. But before looking at the newest findings in current neuroscience and zooming in on the molecular and neuronal tissue levels through optogenetics, connectomics, or transcranial electric stimulation, we’d better take a look at the brain from a distance.

2

The Brain in Bits

In 1966, the neuroscientist Richard Gregory wrote in his book Eye and Brain a sentence that would become instantly famous: “One of the difficulties in understanding the brain is that it is like nothing so much as a lump of porridge.”

I wholly understood the meaning of these words during a course on neuroanatomy at MIT when they placed a sheep’s brain before me for dissection purposes.

When you place this bit of meat in the palm of your hand and observe it carefully, you can’t help but feel surprised and think: how can it be that this little thing is all a sheep needs to hear, smell, learn, sense direction, maintain its bodily functions, feel pain, and coordinate its movements? You decide to believe this because you lack a better alternative. Then you pick up the scalpel, ready to find the parts responsible for each task.

The first thing I did was look at the back. I held up a piece of the cerebral trunk that remained connected to the medulla spinalis. I pushed this down so that the cerebellum stuck out and in this way I was able to cut it more easily. The cerebellum is found right behind the hemispheres, and its principal task is to coordinate movements, keep balance, and learn motor skills. If a person suffers damage to it, he will be incapable of moving correctly or of calculating distances, lose muscular mass, stagger, and fall frequently. Perhaps one of its most interesting characteristics is that, while it’s only ten percent of the size of the whole brain, it holds fifty percent of its neurons.

Once I removed the cerebellum, the next step was to carefully cut the fibers that connect the brain’s left and right hemispheres and separate them slowly to observe what lay hidden behind them. The first thing you see is four oval structures with a type of appendix in the middle. The two largest and most central structures are the thalamus, the area that receives all the information from the senses —except the sense of smell— and is in charge of sending it to the cerebral cortex. The two smaller sections are the colliculi, related to the perception of movement and vision. Between the colliculi and the thalamus, an enigmatic appendix stands out. It is nothing less than the pineal gland, whose central location drove René Descartes to define it as the place where the human soul resides, the place where the soul merges with the body. Leaving aside Descartes’ erroneous mind-body duality, the truth is that this almost insignificant pinkish cone is involved in sexual development, animal hibernation, and the regulation of our metabolism, and it is where melatonin, a hormone that controls circadian rhythm, is produced to regulate sleep and wakefulness.

I am ready to dissect the hemispheres, but we should first pay some attention to the part that connects the brain to the medulla spinalis. It tends to go unnoticed, but the cerebral trunk, besides being a canal of nerve fibers reaching from every corner of our bodies, regulates breathing, heart rate, and the sensation of pain.

I can’t wait any longer. It’s good to analyze the parts that make this machine work. The hemispheres are waiting on the table to show me where the precious cognitive functions are hidden.

The first thing I have to do is separate carefully a layer shaped like a tongue situated in the inferior part of the brain. It is the hippocampus, and it is where you are temporarily storing the phrases you are reading. The level of emotion that such phrases provoke in you will be consolidated to different degrees of strength in other parts of the brain within fifteen minutes. The hippocampus-controlled temporary memory allows us to undertake one action after another or retain for a few minutes the telephone number just given to us. The hippocampus is part of the limbic system, the deepest and most primitive area of the brain. Our most basic emotions are controlled there, including desire, aggression, fear, and repulsion. In the past few years, neuroscientists have concluded that the dichotomy between limbic emotions and cortical reasoning is much less clear than previously thought. However, this is undoubtedly where our most basic instincts, the ones we share with animals, reside.

When we finally arrive at the longed-for cerebral cortex, a mild sense of disappointment seizes everyone in the room. They could tell us that the frontal lobe makes complex decisions, that vision is processed in the posterior part of the brain, tactility in the central zone, and that language is dominated by the left side…but these sections were not very clearly differentiated. This lump of porridge had a very uniform appearance.

The immediate question that sprung to mind was: how do scientists know with such precision where each cognitive function is located? After all, it seems easy to alter a rat’s brain and see what happens, but it is somewhat more complicated to find out what region of the human brain regulates self-control, learning, and musical sense.

Until recently, one of the greatest tools for understanding the brain —besides electrophysiological studies done on primates and lab animals— has been brain injuries. Neuroanatomists probably did not feel too displeased when they received a patient who had suffered an accident or an embolism situated in a specific area of the brain, which was also accompanied by a specific dysfunction. One of the most famous of such cases is represented by the patient H.M., who, after an injury to the hippocampus, spent the rest of his life unable to consolidate his memories. He was able to recall various aspects of his life before the accident, and he was aware of what he was doing in each moment, but after a few minutes he would completely forget where he was, what task he was undertaking, or with whom he was speaking. Linking these problems to his injury, investigators were able to find out which functions were controlled by the hippocampus. Another case documented during the mid-nineteenth century, when a metal bar passed through the skull of a construction worker called Phineas Gage, sheds light on the frontal cortex’s role in controlling our impulses. Gage’s personality changed completely and he began to behave violently and impulsively, without the ability to plan anything long-term. The accident affected the area of the brain responsible for self-control. Pierre Paul Broca’s studies are from this same period. He discovered that various patients with speech problems had injuries in a certain area of the left hemisphere of the brain. From that time on, the Broca area came to be known as one of the main regions where the brain produces language.

Another odd way of identifying brain function is to activate specific areas and see what happens. I have vivid memories of the transcranial magnetic stimulation lab at Harvard, where they put a type of magnetic pan a few centimeters from my head. They flipped a switch, activating my motor cortex and thereby making my arm lift involuntarily. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is being used as a complementary treatment for depression, rehabilitation for cerebrovascular injuries after accidents, migraines, improvement of cognitive abilities, and as a basic research tool for observing brain reactions when specific parts of the brain are activated. Even more spectacular are the experiments where electrical activation of specific areas of the temporal lobes induced mystical experiences in volunteers being tested. Even religious ecstasy seems to be situated in a certain part of the brain.

The great revolution started at the beginning of the 1990s with the introduction of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This was an enormous leap. For the first time you could study how normal brains, as well as injured ones, functioned. The basic approach of the fMRI was very simple: when you use a certain part of your brain, the amount of blood flow to that part increases. In this way, you can measure these blood pressure variations while carrying out a certain action and so find out which part of the brain is responsible for that action. As I write these words, an fMRI scanner would show activity in my prefrontal cortex and in the areas responsible for moving my fingers, whereas while you are reading, the areas related to vision, among others, would light up.

The fMRI has revived neophrenology, or the understanding of which parts of the brain control specific cognitive activities. This has opened doors to emerging disciplines such as neuroeconomics, which analyzes our decision-making process; neuromarketing, which researches consumer behavior; neurotheology, which studies the areas of the brain involved in mystical or religious experiences; neurophilosophy, which aims to answer basic questions concerning human nature; and neuroethics, which foresees a future invasion of our personalities and keeps a close watch on future information applications that might be generated by this technology. Interesting. After reading so many articles related to the fMRI, I couldn’t resist volunteering for a scan and seeing what they could figure out about my personality.

3

Lying Under the fMRI

If they ask you, ‘Have you cheated on your partner?’ and you lie, a specific part of the cerebral cortex is activated; it would not light up if you were telling the truth. Is this enough to build the most infallible lie detector of all time?

This is what the Harvard University study, in which I was a guinea pig, aimed to find out.

As the headquarters for MIT and Harvard universities, Cambridge is a paradise for scientific explorers, making it highly probable that if you are at a bar on a Wednesday night and you meet someone, he or she is probably researching something amazing.

Rogier looked like a scientist. In fact, so much so that, when they introduced me to him at a restaurant called Cuchi Cuchi, I immediately asked what research field he was in. “Cognitive neuroscience, analyzing the most primitive biological substratum of our thoughts and behavior,” he said. I asked him for an example and he described the following study, which had been carried out a few weeks before at a California university: various volunteers underwent a cerebral scan and tried different types of wine. Both wines were Cabernet Sauvignon, but one cost $90 per bottle and the other only $5. The participants knew the prices of each wine before tasting them, and when asked which one they liked more, the majority answered “the expensive one.” This was not only a rational a posteriori decision, since the cerebral scanner also confirmed greater activity in the pleasure center of the volunteers’ brains when tasting the expensive wine. What was the study’s catch? Well, the scientists had switched the wine labels. Fantastic. So knowing the price of a wine subjectively conditions you, and the physical sensation of satisfaction experienced in your brain will also be considerably greater. “Impressive!” I immediately thought, and I asked Rogier what he was working on at that moment. He sat there thinking for a moment and then said, “Wait a minute. Would you like to participate in one of our studies?” “Of course!” I answered. “Well, I can’t fully explain it to you or you’ll already be conditioned. Come by the Psychology Department at Harvard next week and we’ll get started.” And that’s just what I did.

During that first meeting with Rogier at his office, he didn’t say a word about what the study might entail. In fact, he had me fill out a pile of surveys asking for the most random information, including names of people I knew, vision ability, dates that were significant to me, matters related to my past, interests. After about twenty minutes, Rogier returned and, without any big explanation, we agreed on a day for me to show up at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital.

A few weeks later, I arrived at the appointed time for the fMRI. They gave me a list of dates to confirm which ones were really important to me in my life. They also asked me to remember February 24 as though it were a transcendental day for me.

Later, lying face up and wearing a white gown, divested of anything metallic, you let them wrap your head between two pieces of foam to keep it completely immobile, and they ask rhetorically whether you are comfortable. Then you are sent into a narrow machine that makes strange noises. For two long hours, your only contact with the researchers is through a small screen via which they receive information, and two buttons under your index and middle fingers, with which you could answer “yes” or “no” to their questions.

The first scan didn’t measure activity. It only drew a detailed 3-D map of the structure of my brain, on which they would later superimpose the images of activity.

The second scan had already begun to measure which parts of my brain would receive increased blood flow when I performed the requested tests. The first questions were very simple: dates would appear, and I had to respond with a “yes” if the date was important to me. The same dates were shown to me in different orders, and the only ones I recognized as important were my birthday and February 24.

Later, they gave me different instructions: when I saw my birthday I had to lie and push the button for “no” as though it were just any other unimportant date.

In theory, a certain part of my brain should light up when I lie.

However, this was not the point of the study, since this effect had already been shown previously. The new point of the study came during the third round of scans. I had to answer the same questions, but with a small additional step. While responding, I was also asked to make a small gesture with my left hand. I took the tests several more times, and then the experiment was over. That’s it?

Later, Rogier explained the experiment to me in more detail. In reality, they were checking to see if the scanner could be used as a lie detector. Their hypothesis was that it could not. Under ideal conditions, when someone lies you can see clearly that a part of the brain lights up under the scanner; but their suspicions were that this part of the brain could also be affected by other gestures being carried out at the same time. Rogier’s group wanted to see if the third phase of the test —moving my left hand— would interfere with the signal that appeared when I answered that my birthday was not an important date for me. If it turned out that this was so, then the fMRI would be invalidated as a lie detector.

I returned home and started thinking about how flimsy these brain readings seemed to be, and I suspected that a major part of behavioral studies published regarding the fMRI did not have a solid foundation. I found my answer a few months later after attending Rebecca Saxe’s seminar on her fMRI studies and went up to ask her, “Do they publish many flawed studies?” Her answer was straightforward, “Lots! Approximately ninety percent of them due to too few samples, poor accuracy, erroneous experimental conditions. They even show up in reference magazines.” I felt a bit startled by this, “And how can you tell which ones are flawed? For example, I recently learned about a study involving cheap and expensive wines, and it seemed very simple.” “Well, no. This was one of the acceptable ones. The signal as to whether you like or dislike something is very clear, because it emerges in a very specific part of the brain. In contrast, when you see a study involving the prefrontal cortex, you shouldn’t trust it, because that’s where a large number of actions intertwine.” “Like lie detectors?” I asked. “Exactly! Those tests make no sense!”

4

Serotonin, Oxytocin, and Deceptive Love

Of course we’re not only our chemistry! We’re…we’re also… There has to be something else! Or is there?

If tonight your testosterone levels are higher than normal, your sexual appetite will have increased and you will be more predisposed to seek sex.

If you are not successful, relax. You won’t feel any anxiety because testosterone levels rise and fall rapidly without any major consequences, and the next day everything will start from scratch. The idea that “I can’t go home like this” is just a myth.

However, if you’re lucky and you have satisfactory sex with someone, you’ll notice the delight generated in your brain by dopamine, the pleasure hormone. Be careful though, because if it really feels good, you’ll want to repeat the experience at all costs. Don’t let the dopamine fool you! Dopamine doesn’t really care if you go with the same woman or not; it will even let you feel like you are in love with two people at the same time. Alright, alright…If it has been really good, perhaps when you wake up you’ll notice a small drop in your serotonin levels, you’ll feel disoriented, and you’ll think that this person is special, she’s different. And not being with her will cause you uneasiness. You’ll start to fall in love.

Perhaps after various shots of dopamine you’ll notice a certain sensation of addiction. You can relax and calmly enjoy it. In this state, the testosterone and dopamine do not form a relevant part of the story. Backing out of the situation will not cause any great trauma at this point. It will get serious, though, when oxytocin appears on the scene. Your brain will secrete it in large quantities during each orgasm, and it is responsible for the feelings of attachment you experience, uniting you and your new companion definitively. If there were a love hormone it would have to be oxytocin. When you are together, it reduces your stress, lowers your fear, and increases your confidence, generosity, and the sensation of wellbeing with each embrace. It is the chemical essence of affection. And the most important part is that it makes you feel happy when you see that your companion is happy. Your companion’s satisfaction becomes more important than your own. At this point, you can honestly say, “I love you” instead of “I desire you,” which is more appropriate for the stage dominated by dopamine.

However, don’t take it for granted. Make sure that you maintain the oxytocin at a high level through orgasms, because if you don’t it could taper off until the attachment disappears. If this happens to the two of you at the same time, it won’t be such a big deal. The sadness of separation will quickly pass and you’ll feel a sensation of relief. When it gets dangerous, unlucky, unhealthy, disastrous, devastating… is when, for whatever reason, the relationship ends while oxytocin levels are at their highest. This is when the brain’s chemistry goes crazy. Serotonin levels drop to the floor. You become depressed and desperate; you lose good judgment; you question what’s right and wrong; anxiety appears; then obsession…

You separate and suddenly your neurons that are charged with pleasure are no longer secreting dopamine. You notice a syndrome of brutal abstinence. Your brain’s synapses scream to see your beloved once more. You shouldn’t do it: it’s suicide hormonally speaking. You will relapse like an alcoholic who thinks: “It’s only one drink.” Give it time and let your brain’s chemistry return to normal levels. Moreover, you won’t find love or anything else there anymore. Well, perhaps it is still there, but it remains blinded by the egotistical desire to feel better, to relive your own suffering. At this time, you are not thinking about what’s best for the other person. The one who has come out of the relationship less damaged might say: “I want us to remain friends.” Scientifically, it’s absurd. It’s comparable to trying to cure alcoholism by saying: “You should stop drinking. However, you can continue to frequent the same bars. You don’t need to throw out the bottles you have stashed in your house. Give the wine an innocent kiss from time to time.” The neuroscience experts know that you’ll get nowhere like this. If we take their advice, the treatment for falling out of love is to erase phone numbers and messages, and throw photos in the trash, even though it’s painful.

MOLECULES DETERMINE OUR BEHAVIOR

It’s difficult to accept that the in-love brain’s torrent of chemical substances is solely responsible for the way we behave. Evidently, this is not the case. One might think that coming across an attractive person is what causes testosterone levels to increase, and not the other way around. Perhaps, but we can find numerous examples in which we clearly observe that the chemicals came first, followed by the behavior. Drink coffee while you’re tired and you’ll see: if you’re fatigued, the increase in adenosine in your brain will tell your neurons that it would be better for you to slow down and get ready for bed. And if, at this moment, you introduce caffeine molecules into your body, when they arrive at your neurons, they’ll block the adenosine receptors, impeding the effectiveness of the adenosine signal.

After a long period of depression, the level of serotonin that one neuron sends to another in the synapses becomes very low. One way to increase serotonin levels is with antidepressants, blocking the channels throug

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