Meeting of the Minds

UC Davis Biologists and Social Scientists Share Their Interest in the Mind Sciences

"A very positive outcome of the development of the Center for Neuroscience has been the growth of collaborative efforts between biologists in the center and faculty from disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, and linguistics," says Mark McNamee, dean of the Division of Biological Sciences. "Each brings a unique perspective to the study of the mind."

Mind sciences' program. Currently, a committee of faculty members who share an interest in the "mind sciences" is spearheading the development of a campuswide mind sciences' program. The membership includes animal behaviorist Peter Marler, professor emeritus of neurobiology, physiology, and behavior and of psychology, and psychology professor Philip Shaver, who studies adult romantic love and loneliness. Other members are drawn from linguistics, neurology, human development, psychiatry, philosophy, neuroscience, and radiology. Collectively they exemplify the interdisciplinary approach to studying the mind-brain mystery.

Ron Mangun, professor of psychology and current chair of the mind sciences' committee, explains why UC Davis is well-suited for the new program. "Mind science is a new trend, and UC Davis is unique in having a very strong systems neuroscience program here as the result of the Center for Neuroscience. The strong campus emphasis in behavioral biology also will strongly complement the mind sciences' program."

Two years ago the mind sciences' committee began the popular "Science of Mind Distinguished Lecture Series" that brings to UC Davis internationally known scholars whose work relates to mind-brain issues. According to professor of philosophy Paul Teller, the committee has proposed a mind sciences' center that would provide a condensation point for related activities. The group has also proposed recruiting new faculty members who are focused on mind-brain issues.

Modeling brain function.Advances in scientific techniques are one reason researchers think it is possible to have a model of how the complex mind-brain system works within the next 10 to 50 years. Shaver explains that "Because of the recent invention of brain-imaging techniques, it is finally possible to see what is happening in the brain when a person thinks, gets angry, attends to a particular stimulus, or reacts to an issue with a particular attitude. When combined with records from patients with various kinds of brain malfunctions, these scanning studies allow scientists to piece together an increasingly sophisticated picture of the neural and hormonal bases of experience and behavior."

Psychological research. Shaver illustrates some of the campus research partnerships that contribute pieces to the mind-brain puzzle: "In the psychology department, for example, Ron Mangun works on visual attention; Andy Yonelinas works on memory; Leo Chalupa works on the fetal development of the visual system of cats; Sally Mendoza and John Capitanio work on hormonal bases of emotion, social behavior, and health; and Bruno Olshausen creates mathematical models of neural networks—to name just a few. Their research activities mesh with the work of psychologists and social scientists. For example, I study romantic attachments psychologically and am interested in what Sally and John learn about such attachments from a physiological perspective. My colleague Gail Goodman studies children's true and false memories of abuse and trauma and is interested in what Yonelinas and other physiologists learn about basic memory processes."

Comparative studies.Marler, who directs the Center for Animal Behavior, is interested in the mind sciences from a comparative standpoint. "We don't know yet if language is essential for thinking. If it isn't, then perhaps the mental processes that occur in humans also happen in animals. It's a dangerous assumption to think that humans are unique in every respect. Since we evolved from other creatures, it's difficult to believe that a whole range of abilities just sprang up. That's one of the questions the program may help answer. And certainly other biologists on campus will be excited by what's happening in the program."

Defining the mind.Philosophers have long debated a fundamental question: What distinguishes the mind from the brain? Says Teller, "The answer for academics, in western culture at the end of the 20th century, is that you merely consult your intuition that your experience of mental phenomena is obviously distinct from your experience of physical phenomena, and that is why there should be a presumption that the two are different. Although just because things mental seem different from things physical, it certainly doesn't follow that they are distinct."

Teller emphasizes that the mind is a concept the definition of which continues to evolve. "We work from examples which we take to be typical and which everyone agrees are typical of mental phenomena. These are sensations, emotions, and thought processes, language when you speak to yourself, mental images, and reasoning processes. As the science progresses, you refine the distinctions. For instance, biology started with clear cut examples between things that are living and things that are not living. The distinction is much more finely drawn than it was 100 years ago. Exactly what accounts for an object to be a living organism or not, [we] still don't have a very precise definition of that. The issue of what counts as the mental should be viewed as something that will be clarified in the process of studying the phenomenon in exactly the same sort of way."

As with mountain climbers at the beginning of their quest, scientists studying the mind-brain don't know what lies ahead. Clearly though, solving this mystery is, as Shaver puts it, "of tremendous importance to future developments in human health."