The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

Although cultural bias in scientific research is not central in The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge nevertheless dedicates time to explaining why the brain has long been conceived as hardwired, unchanging. He believes Enlightenment ideals, which originated in late-17th century Europe and became popularized over the past few centuries, still affect experts’ perception of human nature. An understanding of this history will allow readers to fully appreciate the groundbreaking nature of recent advances in neuroscience, while explaining why scientists of non-European descent—like Indian American neurologist V. S. Ramachandran—might not hold similar biases about brain plasticity.

The Age of Enlightenment, also called the Age of Reason, was a period of intellectual and philosophical growth characterized by a new ideal: the pursuit of empirical knowledge and rationality. This led to a radical shift in people’s approach to scientific and philosophical reasoning, with many theories challenging previous assumptions about human nature—the origins of life, natural law, constitutional government, and ethics. Among the most influential figures of the Enlightenment is French philosopher René Descartes, who argued there was a fundamental divide between the material body (including the brain) and immaterial mind (or soul). His theory would later form the Cartesian school of thought, which portrayed the body as a machine, bound to the limitations of its genetic makeup. By contrast, the mind can transcend these limitations because it is not bound to a material form.

At a similar point in time, behaviorism became a popular approach to understanding animal and human evolution. Behaviorism tends to portray the body as a passive vessel, programmed to respond to outside stimuli in ways that ensure survival. It also tends to disregard instances of free will or aspects of heredity, focusing instead on the interaction between organism and external environment. This led to an increasing bias toward localizationism in neurophysiology. Localizationism is the idea that specific functions of the body can only be operated by specific regions of the brain, and that damage to the brain will permanently bar these functions. In other words, Cartesianism, behaviorism, and localizationism are all Enlightenment-era schools of thought which view the body as passive, creating the image of hardwired, unchanging human physiology—which prevented the idea of the plastic brain from taking root in the 20th century. Scientists like Michael Merzenich attempted to describe the brain as plastic, but were dismissed by peers and professors.

However, pre-Enlightenment philosophies did not perceive the body as a machine. Ancient Greek philosophy viewed all beings as a vast living organism, and several Asian cultures viewed the body as similarly changing and connected to nature. At the end of Chapter 7, Doidge speculates Indian American neurologist V. S. Ramachandran did not share the same bias against neuroplasticity as American and European peers because he grew up in India—where religious figures often “overcome” their bodies by walking on hot coals and lying on nails. Ramachandran’s reality was defined by living examples of the adaptable body and resilient mind; thus, he more easily questioned Enlightenment ideals. Overall, cultural bias remains a factor that limits scientific advancement, with a better understanding of biases being able to improve future research.