Kandel

Suzanne Ardanowski

Feeling Brain

May 6, 2008

            I am writing about Kandel for my conference project, so I was curious to read his article this week.  I thought it was interesting how he noted that the growing field of psychopharmacology prompted the return to neurology in psychiatry.  It was also thought provoking to read, “behavioral disorders that characterize psychiatric illness are disturbances of brain function, even in those cases where the causes of the disturbances are clearly environmental in origin” (p.460).  Society, culture can cause disturbances in the way your brain actually functions.  As he states, “all sociology must to some degree be sociobiology This emphasizes Kandel’s integration of neurology and psychology.  The idea that learning can alter gene expression seems easy to conceptualize when I think about a fear response.  When I think about dysfunctional behavior learning, for example narcissism or domestic violence, actually changing neurons and gene expression I am repeatedly wowed. It is really amazing to me to think that everything thing one does has a neural pathway that can be altered by learning. Kandel continues, “There can be no changes in behavior that are not reflected in the nervous system” (p.464).  He also goes further to say that at times, these changes may not be detectable, but nonetheless they are occurring.  I liked his questions at the end which would work well with my conference work, regarding the different schools of though regarding consciousness.