THERE ARE MANY TYPES OF LEARNING, AND SURVIVAL MEANS
more than simply staying alive. While many of the studies mentioned above measure the amount endorphins and other peptides boost memory and learning in cold quantitative terms - relative ability to memorize long lists of words or numbers, reaction time, speed with which rats learn to run a maze - such measurable elements are not the only compo- nents of memory and learning. As we all know instinctively, the key to meaningful memory and learning is emotional in- volvement. Thus actors find they can memorize their lines more effectively when they try to become the character they are playing, finding the emotional meaning within the lines and connecting them to a feeling response within themselves. Thus we remember more vividly past events which aroused our emotions, and we learn more from a college course or a book whose subject matter we strongly value and respond to emotionally. It is in this type of learning through emotional involvement that the endorphins play a key role.
One study casts some light on the relationship between endorphins and highly charged emotional experiences, and suggests how this might be connected to increased learning abilities. Avram Goldstein, head of the Addiction Research Center in Palo Alto, California, and professor of pharmacol- ogy at Stanford, has long been a pioneer in the field of endor- phin studies. Goldstein was fascinated by "musical thrills," the shudders, back-of-the-neck tingles, and chills up the spine we feel when listening to music that moves and involves us emotionally. He suspected that these sensations might be caused by the release of endorphins. To test this, he allowed experimental subjects to select music that gave them these thrills, then let them listen to it while signaling him when they
154
WE SING THE M I N D ELECTRIC, PART TWO: THE ALPHA STIM
were thrilled and how strongly. Then he divided them into two groups, injected one group with the endorphin antagonist na- loxone, and injected the other group with an inactive placebo, in a double-blind situation. He found that the drug blocked or disrupted the thrill response in a significant number of sub- jects.123 This suggests that the musical thrills were a result of endorphins released in response to the music.
This thrill response is not limited to music. Most of us feel it as a natural part of any experiment that is deeply moving or emotionally involving. In fact, it would be possible to use this response as a scale to measure just how strongly we were responding to a situation, be it a poem, novel, mathematical equation, landscape, film, philosophical disquisition, or song. The more strongly our response registers on the scale, which we'll call the goose-bump quotient, the more powerful is our involvement with the material being experienced. And to ex- plore the implications of Goldstein's study of musical thrills, we might say that the greater the goosebump quotient, the greater the amount of endorphins being released in our bodies.
Most important, the goose-bump quotient can also be used a rough indicator of one type of learning; the thrill comes in response to a sudden understanding, a feeling of knowing which is not coldly logical and rational but instead is visceral, intense, emotionally highly colored, and capable of altering your life. And, in the long run, it is this type of gutlevel learning that is long remembered, in fact is virtually unfor- gettable, and is in the truest sense learning that is "survival- oriented." The fact that the endorphins reward and favor this type of emotional response indicates that these aesthetic experiences, including music, art, philosophy, and the per- ception of beauty and order, are extremely beneficial and val- uable, and perhaps even essential to intellectual and emotional growth. By inducing and mediating this type of learning through emotional response, the endorphins seem to be en- couraging us to expand and enlarge those parts of our brains and minds which are uniquely human.
MEGABRAIN
rewards for survival-oriented - i.e., intelligent - behavior seem to be favoring and guiding us toward what Pert calls "perfect knowledge."
THE GOOSE-BUMP QUOTIENT
THERE ARE MANY TYPES OF LEARNING, AND SURVIVAL MEANS
more than simply staying alive. While many of the studies mentioned above measure the amount endorphins and other peptides boost memory and learning in cold quantitative terms - relative ability to memorize long lists of words or numbers, reaction time, speed with which rats learn to run a maze - such measurable elements are not the only compo- nents of memory and learning. As we all know instinctively, the key to meaningful memory and learning is emotional in- volvement. Thus actors find they can memorize their lines more effectively when they try to become the character they are playing, finding the emotional meaning within the lines and connecting them to a feeling response within themselves. Thus we remember more vividly past events which aroused our emotions, and we learn more from a college course or a book whose subject matter we strongly value and respond to emotionally. It is in this type of learning through emotional involvement that the endorphins play a key role.
One study casts some light on the relationship between endorphins and highly charged emotional experiences, and suggests how this might be connected to increased learning abilities. Avram Goldstein, head of the Addiction Research Center in Palo Alto, California, and professor of pharmacol- ogy at Stanford, has long been a pioneer in the field of endor- phin studies. Goldstein was fascinated by "musical thrills," the shudders, back-of-the-neck tingles, and chills up the spine we feel when listening to music that moves and involves us emotionally. He suspected that these sensations might be caused by the release of endorphins. To test this, he allowed experimental subjects to select music that gave them these thrills, then let them listen to it while signaling him when they
154
WE SING THE M I N D ELECTRIC, PART TWO: THE ALPHA STIM
were thrilled and how strongly. Then he divided them into two groups, injected one group with the endorphin antagonist na- loxone, and injected the other group with an inactive placebo, in a double-blind situation. He found that the drug blocked or disrupted the thrill response in a significant number of sub- jects.123 This suggests that the musical thrills were a result of endorphins released in response to the music.
This thrill response is not limited to music. Most of us feel it as a natural part of any experiment that is deeply moving or emotionally involving. In fact, it would be possible to use this response as a scale to measure just how strongly we were responding to a situation, be it a poem, novel, mathematical equation, landscape, film, philosophical disquisition, or song. The more strongly our response registers on the scale, which we'll call the goose-bump quotient, the more powerful is our involvement with the material being experienced. And to ex- plore the implications of Goldstein's study of musical thrills, we might say that the greater the goosebump quotient, the greater the amount of endorphins being released in our bodies.
Most important, the goose-bump quotient can also be used a rough indicator of one type of learning; the thrill comes in response to a sudden understanding, a feeling of knowing which is not coldly logical and rational but instead is visceral, intense, emotionally highly colored, and capable of altering your life. And, in the long run, it is this type of gutlevel learning that is long remembered, in fact is virtually unfor- gettable, and is in the truest sense learning that is "survival- oriented." The fact that the endorphins reward and favor this type of emotional response indicates that these aesthetic experiences, including music, art, philosophy, and the per- ception of beauty and order, are extremely beneficial and val- uable, and perhaps even essential to intellectual and emotional growth. By inducing and mediating this type of learning through emotional response, the endorphins seem to be en- couraging us to expand and enlarge those parts of our brains and minds which are uniquely human.
MEGABRA1N