from MEGABRAIN REPORT VOL. 1 NO. 4
Edited by Michael Hutchison




                    HAPPY BRAIN, SAD BRAIN:

                BRAIN TECH AND CEREBRAL ASYMMETRY

                      by Michael Hutchison


LET A SMILE (RIGHT SIDE) BE YOUR UMBRELLA

Stop now and note your emotional state: are you happy, sad, upbeat,
depressed, eager?  All right, now, keeping the left half of your
face motionless, vigorously contract the right side of your face
several times--smile energetically and forcefully, each time
contracting not only the muscles in your cheeks that draw the lip
corners up but also the muscles around your right eye.  Stop now
and pay attention to yourself. Has your emotional state changed?

You have just been practicing one of the most recently discovered
examples of neurotechnology (i.e. the systematic application of a
body of knowledge [techology] to your brain). If you are like most
people, contracting the right side of your face probably triggered
positive emotions, joy, cockiness, a lifting of the spirits.  If
you had contracted the left side of your face you probably would
have felt an inexplicable sadness and depression.

The link between left side of the face activity and sadness and
right side of ther face activity and happiness has been discovered,
and verified in a series of studies, by Canadian researchers (in
the journal Neuropsychologia, 27: 923-925). In two of the studies
the researchers, Bernard Schiff and Mary Lamon, simply asked the
subjects to vigorously contract either the right or left sides of
their face. They found strong evidence (in over 90% of the
subjects) that contorting one side of the face produces emotions,
with the left side of the face producing sadness and negative
emotions, right side producing positive emotions.

In another study subjects were asked to describe an emotionally
ambiguous picture after performing the contractions.  Subjects
tended to describe it negatively after contracting the left side
of the face, positively after the right.

The research emerged from Schiff's experiences as a therapist, when
he noticed that clients often began therapy with great facial
asymmetries which disappeared as their distress diminished.  In
another study, Schiff reversed the studies described above and
worked from actual feelings toward facial expressions, and found
that stress itself could cause subjects to exhibit such facial
asymmetries.

Most of us have probably played the game of placing a pocket mirror
down the center of photographic head-shots (such as those in school
yearbooks) to see the enormous differences between faces made up
of two left sides (i.e. the "right" side actually a mirror image
of the left side) and two right sides. Schiff and Lamon's studies
add a new dimension to this, and to the simple act of consciously
observing peoples' faces, since it's clear that peoples' facial
expressions, and their patterns of facial symmetry and activity,
reveal much about their emotional state and their personality.

Since Schiff and Lamon's subjects reported that their emotional
responses were independent of conscious thought, these studies
challenge the long-dominant view that emotion is invariably
secondary to some form of thought or consciousness and add to the
growing neuroscientific evidence that emotions can precede and
often determine conscious processes. The researchers concluded
that, "Unilateral facial contractions appear to induce emotional
experiences without cognitive mediation."

"One implication," they observed, "is that assymetries in facial
expression, whether spontaneous or deliberate, may actually
influence the emotional experience." Which suggests that we can
deliberately influence and alter our emotional state by means of
facial expression. Let a smile be your umbrella, indeed, provided
the smile is on the right side of your face.


SUN BRAIN, MOON BRAIN

Interestingly, several other groups of scientists working
independently of Schiff and Lamon have recently published a flurry
of studies that cast light on the actual neurophysiology underlying
the link between facial asymmetry and emotions. Using EEG testing,
these scientists have discovered that the difference between a
happy disposition or a melancholy one (and between left-face and
right face activation) may lie in a specific pattern of brainwave
activity.  Specifically, these scientists have found that "EEG
asymmetry in anterior regions of the brain" can predict and
diagnose emotional states and emotional styles.

What is this EEG asymmetry? Stated simply, people with more
activity in the left frontal cortex than in the right tend to have
a more cheerful and positive temperament--they are self-confident,
outgoing, interested in people and external events, resilient,
optimistic and happy.  On the other hand, people whose EEG shows
more activity in the right frontal cortex than in the left tend to
be more sad and negative in their outlook--they see the world as
more stressful and threatening, are more suspicious of people, and
feel far more fear, disgust, anxiety, self-blame and hopelessness
than the left-activated group.

Looking at this in terms of evolutionary biology, we might say the
high-activity left-frontal people show more "approach" behavior,
while the right-frontal actives show more "withdrawal" behavior.
Clearly the survival and evolution of the human race required both
types of behavior, but the new evidence suggests that ordinarily
the left frontal region of the brain exerts some control over the
right frontal cortex, "turning off" the negative or withdrawal
behavior when it no longer serves a purpose. However, it now
appears that in some individuals, high levels of right frontal
activity may have overpowered or short-circuited the normal ability
of the left frontal cortex to turn off or exert control over
negative feelings.

These discoveries have been reported in a recent outburst of
articles in scientific journals (mainly in the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Abnormal
Psychology), but are the result of over a decade of research by a
number of scientists, led by Dr. Richard Davidson, of the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his colleagues (including Dr.
Jeffrey Henriques, also of UW, Madison, and Dr. Andrew Tomarken,
a psychologist at Vanderbilt). Let me summarize some of their
fascinating findings.

In one recent study, Davidson and Tomarken gave a group of 99 women
a personality test that classified them on a scale from positive
outlook to negative.  They also studied their patterns of brainwave
activity using an EEG. The results were clear: those with the most
right-frontal activity were also those whose personality tests
showed the most pronounced negative outlook, while those with the
most left-frontal activity had the highest scores for positive
outlook.

This emotional difference between right and left was also evident
when the scientists worked in the other direction, working backward
from facial expressions to brainwave patterns: they measured
observable facial behavior during experiences of happiness and
disgust, while simultaneously measuring brainwave activity to
observe patterns of hemispheric activation during the experience
of happiness and disgust.  They found that disgust was clearly
associated with right-sided activation in the frontal and anterior
temporal regions, while happiness was accompanied by left-sided
activation.

NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE BRAINS OF FILM CRITICS

In one study, Dr. Tomarken found that these brainwave patterns
could predict "affective responses to emotion elicitors," i.e. how
the subjects would react to film clips that were preselected to
elicit positive or negative emotions (the positive film clips were
of a puppy at play, or an amusing gorilla taking a bath; the
negative clips showed gory surgery scenes). Those with more right-
frontal activity showed far more powerful negative emotions, such
as fear and disgust, when viewing the surgical scenes than did
those with more left-frontal activity. On the other hand, those
with more left-frontal activity derived far more pleasure and
delight from the positive films than did the gloomy right-frontal
subjects. Significantly, these effects were independent of the
subjects mood ratings at the time at which their baseline EEG was
measured, just before viewing the films.

In other words, things that might produce delight and euphoria in
some people will leave others cold, unmoved, or even suspicious;
and things that some folks find only mildly unpleasant will fill
others with enormous revulsion, disgust and horror. And these
responses can be predicted, simply by observing their brainwave
patterns. Now imagine these different types of people trying to
communicate to each other their feelings about something more
emotionally complex than a frolicking puppy or open-heart surgery-
-something like life, and the experiences of day to day existence.
Imagine an activated left-frontal husband with an activated right-
frontal wife. . . .


DEPRESSION IN THE BRAIN

There is also evidence that these brainwave asymmetries may be
linked to depression. Henriques and Davidson tested the EEGs of a
group of normal subjects who had never been treated for depression,
and a group of subjects who had been previously depressed and later
successfully treated for depression.  They found that the
previously depressed subjects had far less left-frontal activity,
and far more right-frontal activity, than those who had never been
depressed.

In a later study Davidson found that patients who had just been
diagnosed with depression and were about to begin treatment had
less left-frontal activity than non-depressed subjects. "You find
similar brain patterns in people who are depressed, or who have
recovered from depression, and in normal people who are prone to
bad moods," said Davidson. "We suspect that people with this brain
activity pattern are at high risk for depression."


THE CRY-BABY BIOMARKER

There is evidence that these brainwave patterns and emotional
"styles" may be hereditary or genetically-influenced. Davidson has
studied the behavior and the EEG patterns of 10-month old infants
during a brief period (one minute) of separation from their
mothers, and found that "those infants who cried in reponse to
maternal separation showed greater right-frontal activation during
the preceding baseline period compared with infants who did not
cry." Observed Davidson, "Every single infant who cried had more
right frontal activation.  Every one who did not had more activity
on the left." He concluded that "Frontal activation asymmetry may
be a state-independent marker for individual differences in
threshold of reactivity to stressful events and vulnerability to
particular emotions."

These clear links between frontal activation asymmetry have led
many researchers to believe that these brain patterns can be useful
for diagnosis, particularly for diagnosing people at risk for
depression. Says Davidson, "We believe that in the face of life
stress like losing a job or a divorce," those with right-frontal
activation "are likely to be particularly susceptible to
depression."

(These recent experimental findings support earlier work, such as
that of Pierre Flor-Henry of the University of Alberta, who found
that when he gave baribiturates to the right brain only, subjects
reported euphoria, and when he gave it to the left, subjects became
depressed. A neurosurgeon reported recently that after he had
removed part of the right frontal lobe during surgery the patient's
personality was transformed, becoming much more positive and
affectionate. A 1984 study in the journal Brain of patients who had
suffered strokes reported that those with lesions in their right
frontal cortex were "unduly cheerful." And recent PET scan studies
at U.C.L.A. and in France have revealed that severely depressed
patients show a dramatic decrease of activity in the prefrontal
lobes on the left compared with non-depressed subjects.)

TURNING UP THE JUICE IN THE JOLLY LOBE

The next step, of course, is to move from simply observing the
existing brainwave patterns and using them for diagnosis to
actively developing strategies and techniques for altering the
patterns.  As Dr. Davidson pointed out, "If you learn to regulate
your negative feelings better, it may turn out that you have also
learned to turn up the activity in your left frontal lobe."

Well, here we are where we started out: It should now be clear that
our original exercise in neurotechnology, in which we contorted the
right side of our face to produce positive emotions or good
feelings, is one technique for "turning up the activity in your
left frontal lobe."  We know that the brain is cross-wired with the
body, so that the left hemisphere is linked to the right side of
the body.  Thus, by activating forcefully the right side of the
face, it seems we are also activating the left side of the brain,
the side associated with positive feelings.  Another method for
doing this, an ancient yogi pranayama technique, is breathing
through the right nostril to activate the left hemisphere. The
yogis called this the "sun breath," in comparison with the "moon
breath" of the left nostril/right hemisphere.


MIND TECH, BRAIN COHERENCE AND EMOTIONAL SELF-REGULATION

But of course this raises some interesting questions for those of
us who are familiar with modern brain-technology.  One of the clear
effects of some of these tools has been to alter brainwave
activity, both in frequency and in amplitude.  One of the claims
by some makers of light and sound devices, for example, has long
been that these devices can "harmonize," "balance" or "synchronize"
the activity of the brain's hemispheres. Similar claims have been
made about motion systems (such as the Graham and SAMS
Potentializer and the Integrated Motion System), ganzfeld devices,
flotation tanks, cranial electrostimulators, and binaural beat
frequency tapes (as suggested, for example, by the name "Hemi-
Synctm"). Not only have these claims been made, but there is some
compelling evidence (such as EEG brain maps) that some sort of
shift in inter-hemispheric brainwave patterns is produced by these
devices.

If in fact these mind-tech tools can reliably alter brainwave
hemispheric asymmetry and produce more symmetrical brainwave
patterns, or if we can learn to use them to target and selectively
activate one region of the brain (such as the left-frontal cortex),
it makes sense to believe that they might have a profound impact,
not only on the treatment of depression, but in helping non-
depressed individuals learn to reject tendencies toward negative
emotions such as fear, sadness, suspicion, self-blame, retreat and
disgust, and replace them with authentic feelings of joy, self-
confidence, delight and an optimistic engagement with the world.

Certainly, much research needs to be done in this area,
particularly research that uses modern brain-monitoring equipment
such as topographic brain-mapping EEGs to observe the effects of
mind machines, and can then link these machine-induced changes in
brain activity with changes in emotional states (I suspect even
more interesting links between brain activity, brain machines and
emotions would emerge from the use of PET scans, though
unfortunately this technology is still too costly for the budgets
of most mind-machine research projects). But if, as Dr. Davidson
says, positive emotions and healthy emotional states may come from
simply "learning to turn up the activity in your left frontal
lobe," we may find that mind-machines can be effective tools of
personality transformation, emotional self-mastery and continuing
delight.