Mind, Brain and Biochemistry

MIND, BRAIN AND BIOCHEMISTRY M ~ lives in a fasc~nating,.k~leidoscopic world, and the microcosm that IS man IS Itself a wonderful complex of the changing and the abiding. There is constant change at every level of his physical and psychological makeup . Yet behind this ever-changing phenomenon there is a permanent substratum, a human person who undergoes these changes. Careful studies have shown that there is a constant turnover of much of the body's chemical components. On the neurophysiological level the pulsating brain has been called " an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern, though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of sub-patterns." 1 On the chemical level the unending array of mobile patterns is well known to biochemists. On the level of man's conscious life the constant flux is even more evident: sensory images, ideas, desires and emotions tumble over one another in rapid succession. The facts of change are so constant and obvious as to lead many to doubt the reality of anything permanent. Some scientists wonder whether there really is such a thing as a person, for they point out that even the so-called person seems to undergo marked changes, sometimes to the point of developing a psychosis. Schizophrenia, for example, suggests a split of personality. The schizophrenic reveals himself as one having a dual personality, at one time revealing the behavioral pattern of one personality, and at other times manifesting an entirely different personality. But, we may ask, is this a true split of the person? 1 C. S. Sherrington, Man on His Nature, !'lnd ed. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1958), p. 184. 519 520 ALBERT S. MORACZEWSKI It is clear that the psychologist and the ontologist do not mean the same thing when they employ the words " person " and "personality." The psychologist, on the one hand, looks for thought, emotion and habit patterns which lead to a consistent and predictable behavior. These for him constitute the "psychological person." The ontologist, on the other hand, perceives the ontological oneness, even the uniqueness, of an existing reality which remains unchanged ontologically throughout the constant physical and psychological variations. This existential reality, the ontological person, under certain conditions is capable of manifesting itself differently, not because of any radical change in its being, but because of modifications in its bodily or mental life. The " person " ontologically understood is the subject in which the changes occur. It remains identically itself throughout aberrations of mind and body. The ontological person, therefore, is the fundamental reality which originates with conception (or shortly thereafter) and remains unchanged until death. Obviously the behavioral changes associated with mental illness occur in the ontological person, but they are changes of the psychological person. Hence, a schizophrenic is one being, one rational, existent being, manifesting more than one emotional and behavioral pattern. The ontological person is an autonomous totality composed of numerous interdependent functional parts. All the parts live by the same life, the unique life of the person, and yet each part has its distinctive vital function. Certain functional parts are so thoroughly dependent upon others that the distinctiveness of specific functions and parts is not infrequently called into question. One important problem much discussed today and in the past concerns the relation of the mind to the brain. Is the mind, as some insist, nothing more than the brain in its functional capacity? If so, is an injured brain the same as an injured mind? Or is the mind a reality distinct from the brain? If so, how do they interact in normal thought, and where is the failure causing mental disease? These and other related MIND, BRAIN AND BIOCHEMISTRY 5~1 questions are acute issues today.2 In particular, the question of the relation of biochemistry to behavior has special relevance to the basic issue. If the mind is a reality distinct from the brain, how does a chemical compound interact with it? And if mental illness is nothing but a malfunctioning of the brain (whose function is ultimately dependent upon molecular activity ), how can psychotherapy, that is, a non-chemical treatment , be effective in reversing an abnormal brain...