Mind over Matter? Neuroplasticity

 Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, AITSE Consortium member and UCLA research psychiatrist and expert on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and neuroplasticity has an interesting take on the connection between the mind and the brain. He views the brain as being passive, receiving signals from our senses, and the mind as the decision-making part of us that chooses where to focus our attention. Intriguingly, Dr. Schwartz’s research indicates that the mind can control and even change the “wiring” of the brain.

In this fascinating interview, Dr. Schwartz explains his work as part of the team that discovered that the intrusive and persistent life-disrupting urges that OCD patients experience are the result of an overactive error-detection mechanism in the orbital prefrontal cortex of the brain. Although some might consider this hereditary state to only be treatable by medication, Dr. Schwartz gives evidence to the contrary. He explains how he teaches his patients to use the focus of their minds to resist the urges of their brains. Amazingly, Positron Emission Tomography actually shows that those who persist to success in this process change the pathological circuitry in their brains.

Dr. Schwartz explains that those who believe that the mind is no more than genetically-determined electrochemical signals (monism or materialism) have no choice but treat patients with long-term (and often pretty ineffective) medications and electrotherapy.

In comparison, the belief that the mind is more than a physical entity (dualism or non-materialism) has profound positive implications for patient care. Here medication is a temporary measure and a means to an end: that of the patient being empowered to use their will (mind) to overcome their brain. This invests patients with the dignity of being an overcomer rather than a hapless and lifelong victim of a chemical imbalance. And Dr. Schwartz has the proof that it works.