The Frontal Lobes and Corpus Callosum
Main functions

'The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.'

Colin Wilson

 
Of particular interest to this research are the frontal lobes, and the corpus callosum which connect the two cerebral hemispheres.

The frontal lobes (also called the frontal cortex) are believed to play an important role in the development of new, stable and well-balanced behaviours and thinking (so long as the cerebral hemispheres are communicating with each other well and in a balanced way) which is especially important during early childhood. The frontal lobes are also critical to formulating our thoughts and dreams (1) through patterns derived from the cerebral hemispheres during problem-solving or when the brain needs to store important information in certain parts of the cerebrum.

As for the corpus callosum, this great bundle of nerves seem to be designed to shuttle information back and forth between the left- and right-cerebral hemispheres during problem-solving (ie. when formulating our thoughts to produce ideas).

Although there would appear to be no immediate and obvious physical link between the frontal lobes and the corpus callosum, brain scans made with Positive Emission Tomography (PET) suggests the corpus callosum is often busy transferring information between the cerebral hemisphere whenever the frontal lobes are active.

One of the classic ways of knowing how important your frontal lobes are in the formation of your thoughts and dreams (before they are brought down to the more primitive parts of the brain where they are turned into reality through our behaviour) is to experience the pain associated with an increase in blood flow to certain parts of the brain during migraines, headaches or a flu (or cold). People often report how visualisation, thinking and dreaming have a habit of increasing the sensation of pain or some kind of pressure in the frontal cortex region. Whereas activities that require no thinking but instead focus on looking at paintings and other visual information can increase blood flow and sometimes a little discomfort at the back of the head. However, if we learn to relax the mind and not observe things in great detail (ie. just live in the here-and-now moment) it seems to have an opposite and more soothing effect on the frontal lobes.


 
The removal, damage or reduced functional capacity of the frontal lobes will probably make it difficult for a person to produce a creative and rational (or "balanced") thought generated by the L- and R-brain. (2) It may also be difficult to associate a thought with an emotion to help improve one's own memory.

In fact, the frontal lobes are intimately linked to our primary emotions. Without this link and the brain finds it difficult to learn and record in memory new patterns needed for behaviour. Thus the removal of these lobes will probably make it extremely difficult to relate our new thoughts (if any) to our feelings as required for effective learning, to recall emotionally-charged events in memory, and to modify our existing behaviours into something new and more balanced especially in times when we must survive in a new and unfamiliar situation.

Although learning is still achievable with the loss of this part of the brain, it often requires considerable effort, and the ability to concentrate on tasks for long-periods of time is probably also seriously hampered.

For a fully-grown adult, the loss of the frontal lobes is not considered a major problem other than not being able to recognise and/or show an appropriate emotional response to a new situation, for example, or to recall certain emotional events in the past, and the difficulty in trying to think on one's own without the assistance of others can be exacerbated. But for a child who has not problem-solved enough in life and therefore has not acquired sufficient individualised and reasonably balanced behaviours, the loss can be serious and could lead to what is known as Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and eventually to extremely imbalanced L-brain and/or R-brain behaviours in adulthood including schizophrenia. (3)

Or if the brain realises the deficit and tries to compensate during intense problem-solving by turning other parts of the remaining cerebrum to perform the same basic functions of the frontal cortex, there may be strong visual and/or auditory delusions in those new areas of the cerebrum where problem-solving may take place. People who suffer these kinds of delusional or psychotic episodes are described by psychologists as schizophrenics (now dubbed as the "cancer of psychiatry"). (4)

For people with frontal lobes still intact, the best way to look after them is for the frontal lobes to be made to concentrate on an emotionally interesting and useful thinking task for at least 15 minutes every day (5) followed by adequate rest. Or for adult men with limited frontal lobes development, fufilling at least one long-term challenge or hobby of interest to them and having regular sleep is crucial to improving their ability to concentrate on certain tasks and becoming more balanced individuals using their frontal cortex (6). This is called behavioural and cognitive stability learning therapy.

The implications of this rather important technique means that the entire Western education system with its emphasis on learning many different things in a very short space of time in so many hours of a day through homework may have to undergo a major overhaul in how people actually learn, especially for young boys who are usually slower to mature and achieve reasonable balance and good thinking powers.

For example, many Western educationalists believe that constant change (the use of fast editing in television programs etc), non-stop stimulation from different areas without adequate rest and time to think and question everything, continuously being competitive and measuring performance and comparing them with others, and in doing as many activities as possible on a daily basis in an attempt to stimulate the mind is the best way to learn. And for some governments, doing any type of job throughout the lifetime of an individual is also seen as best for everyone. Some people call this approach "multiskilling" or the "Jack of all trades, but an expert at none". But this reduces thinking powers in the brain.

If every human being is to effectively solve problems through good thinking powers (rather than reacting to things and trying anything until it works) together with a greater sense of stability and balance in their behaviours, the education system must simplify its education, stop focussing on grading kids as if trying to prove who is better than whom, teach people how to learn for themselves, let people decide what areas they want to learn and achieve in their life, and allow adequate time to concentrate on one or two specific tasks for long periods of time.

The stable approach to learning requires a much more simplified and self-guided approach rather than an all out assault at learning many things as possible in a short space of time and forcing people to accept whatever they are given without question.

As one wise person said: "The quickest way to do many things is to do one thing at a time." (7)

And as Mr Steve Pollock, president of San Francisco-based WetFet.com, said:

'[Too many times] people make poor choices and don't really access what they want out of a career.' (8)

As one article in The Straits Times dated 7 July 2001 stated on page R1:

'Before making a decision regarding a job offer, take the time to decide if it is the right choice for you.' (9)

If we do not allow young minds the time to relax, be themselves, think and concentrate on one thing at a time (10) and something that interests them, children are likely to develop problems like ADHD (which has reached epidemic proportions in many developed countries according to the ABC science program Quantum on 31 August 2000) and perhaps even more severe forms of mental illness.

Actually it would not be surprising if much of this poor development of the frontal cortex is likely to be the root cause for much of the world's greatest human problems.

As far as the grading system is concerned, the following quote from Deputy Principal Judy Aulich of Giralang, Canberra, should be enough to end this nonsense in the Western education system if we are able to learn anything for ourselves:

'Do parents really want their children graded A to E at everything they do from the minute they start school? Their progress in everything plotted against every other child in the class? When my three kids went to school I never doubted that they would learn to read in time, just as I never doubted that they would learn to walk and talk.

'One had the basics of reading pretty much nailed before she went to school, another was not too bad by the end of Year 1 and my other child has struggled for all of his life to read out loud.

'Definitely an E for him at the end of Kindy.

'Several years later there are quite a few degrees between them.

'Oh, and the one with the E in Kindy? He has an honours degree in Law.

'What possible good would competitive grading have achieved, at such a young age? What potential for harm!' (The Canberra Times: Grading degrading (Letters to the Editor). 1 October 2005, p.B8.)

NOTE: R-wing governments would prefer to see a grading system, especially in college and universities as it would help them and other employers select the students they want to employ and where they should go. Assuming the economic system created by governments and employers is balanced and needs to be maintained, this is the only way they can categorise people to achieve certain goals.

 



NOTES

  1. Dreams and thoughts brought to the frontal cortex from long-term and short-term memory are the brain's way of reflecting on the past and formulating a new reality for the future, human consciousness and one's own personality. Dreams and thoughts are the brain's way of bring the past and future into the here-and-now moment.

    Once the dreams and thoughts are made and remembered consciously and are valuable enough to be acted upon, they are brought down to the lower levels of the brain to help bring a sense of reality from these past or future events into the present-day conscious level, and ultimately a change (or reinforcement) in behaviour.

    If, for any reason, our brain should ever stop producing these thoughts and dreams, then our moment of death is imminent. We cannot survive without our ability to dream and create thoughts. If we cannot think and have dreams of our own, we would be nothing without them.

    Your thoughts is what makes you the person who you were in the past, who you are today, and what you will be in the future.

  2. Adults taking marijuana (ie. cannabis) or other hallucinatory drugs are able to temporarily suspend the frontal lobes from functioning properly on a neurochemical level. This means you don't need a surgeon's knife or genetics to stop your frontal lobes from doing its job. Once the frontal lobes are disengaged, information moving between the cerebral hemispheres in a certain direction through the corpus callosum has nothing to control it and give it some rational context.

    Therefore the information has to be brought to our attention in other parts of the brain.

    This is where the visual and/or auditory areas of the cerebrum come into the picture. These areas are likely to take over the function of the frontal cortex. It is here where hallucinations are likely to occur. If the brain continues to perform in this altered state by taking drugs for more than 6 months for a growing young brain, the effects can become increasingly permanent and irrepairably damaged leading to what is described as mental illness (eg. schizophrenia).

    And if young people cannot understand or know how to control the hallucinations, suicide tends to be rated high for these people.

  3. Apart from environmental reasons for the underdevelopment of the frontal lobes such as insufficient practice at concentrating on a task for long periods of time, the genes can also play a role in diminishing the functions of the frontal lobe.

    In an important Australian study into ADHD conducted by Dr Florence Levy, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of NSW, she has discovered a link between our genes and ADHD.

    The scientific study involved looking at the behaviours of a large group of twins, especially those twins who were not influenced by their twin counterparts. In other words, the twins were probably separated at birth and throughout much of their childhood before they became aware of each other's existence. At any rate, the study showed that when one individual developed ADHD, there was a very high probability of observing the same sorts of ADHD behaviours in the individual's own twin brother or sister.

    Further support for Levy's findings comes by way of another ADHD expert by the name of Professor Thomas Brown of the Yale University School of Medicine in the United States. In a conference held recently to discuss the latest ADHD findings, Brown said in his keynote address:

    'In 70-95 per cent of cases you can trace a primary relative who has the disorder. It's inherited just about as much as height is.

    'There is no more medical controversy in the medical and scientific community about this disorder than there is over whether smoking causes cancer or a virus causes AIDS.' (Attention deficit has strong genetic base: Aussie study: The Canberra Times, 10 August 2002, p.9.)

    However, does this mean all ADHD is the result of some kind of bad genes we carry around with us? That would be too great an assumption to make. Environmental factors must play an equally important role and should be considered part of any complete answer to the ADHD problem. You see the environment always affect the sorts of information that gets stored in our genes and in our brain and not just the other way (ie. genes affecting behaviour and ultimately the environment).

    We shall have to wait and see whether there is a study to prove the relationship between the environment and ADHD as well.

    ## SPECIAL UPDATE ##
    17 August 2002

    Some scientists are calling for a study into the impact of the environment on brain development.

    Dr Rob Apathy, an Australian psychologist, is one such scientist. He believes more research needs to be done to determine the link between heavy metal exposure and the various physical and mental problems plaguing children in modern society such as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD), lack of concentration, hyperactivity and so on. (Cronin 2002, p.9.)

    Some of the heavy metals for which Apathy has mentioned include aluminium, commonly found in older kitchen utensils and saucepans (although can still be manufactured today), mercury-laced dental fillings, and paints containing a large smattering of the dangerous lead.

    Apathy runs a clinic in Canberra (based in Deakin) offering a more holistic approach to maintaining physical and psychological health of patients.

  4. There seems to be a way of detecting the early symptoms of schizophrenia. According to the work of two Australian scientists and a few others overseas, you should use your sense of smell to determine how successfully you can identify certain types of smells. If you make regular and dramatic misidentification of certain types of known smells (eg. the smell of methylated spirits as interpreted by a majority of people is somehow interpreted as the smell of pizza or something quite different from your perspective), this is usually the first signs of mental illness developing and a diminishing of the functions of the frontal cortex. And once the frontal cortex goes, the emotional centre of the brain (needed to record patterns effectively in memory) usually starts to suffer as well.

    To learn more about how the sense of smell can show signs of schizophrenia, check the search engines for the study conducted by neuropsychologist Dr Warrick Brewer from the Orygen Youth Health Centre in Melbourne, Australia, and Associate Professor and psychiatrist Chris Pantelis of the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre.

  5. A diet free of artificial preservatives (eg. Sodium Benzoate or Preservative 211, sulfur dioxide or sulfites, MSG flavour enhancer alternatively known as Preservative 635, and many others), flavourings and colourings is believed to reduce hyperactivity, reduce the chances of triggering asthma and allergies, better protects DNA in young cells and, most importantly, improve the concentration abilities of children (the diet should begin as early as possible, preferably prior to conception and during the pregnancy stage). Classic supermarket sources of high preservative concentrations in foods include cordial, sausages and dried apricots. Go for the organically natural versions of the products from health stores.

    Details of the artificial chemicals to avoid can be found at http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/. They are:

    Colours
    102,104,107,110,122,123,124,127,128, 129,132,133,142,151,155, natural colour 160b (annatto)

    Preservatives
    Sorbates 200-203
    Benzoates 210-213
    Sulphites 220-228
    Nitrates, nitrites 249-252
    Propionates 280-283

    Synthetic antioxidants
    Gallates 310-312
    TBHQ, BHA, BHT 319-321

    Flavour enhancers
    Glutamates incl MSG 620-625
    Ribonucleotides 627, 631, 635
    Hydrolysed Vegetable Protein (HVP)

    Artificial flavours
    No numbers, as they are trade secrets

    For example, in June 2008, a UK Health Regulatory body has banned diet Coca Cola after discovering Sodium Benzoate (Preservative 211) present in the drinks was contributing to childhood hyperactivity and damage to DNA in living cells. To maintain profits, the Coca Cola company has removed the preservative from its products sold in the UK and US, but will only remove it in other countries when legislation requires the company to do so according to a report from the Australian Channel 7 current affairs program Today Tonight, 25 June 2008.

    As for highly industrialised regions and mining areas, try to live as far away as possible from these place as they can produce higher than normal concentrations of heavy metals (eg. lead) in the air, soil and water which can enter the food chain and your lungs and eventually affect the brain, liver and other parts of the body.

    Also consider reducing starchy foods (ie. foods high in sugar and other highly digestible carbohydrates) unless you are exercising a lot. Don't eliminate them altogether. The body always need some energy to function properly. Energy is extracted from sugars and complex carbohydrates (eg. rice and pasta).

    To reduce the intake of high-energy foods, consider eating more vegetables and protein (eg. fresh organic fish).

    Finally, never see the range of psycho-stimulus drugs as the first line of defence against ADHD for your children. They are designed only as a last resort for children who have proven mental illness. Use alternative and more natural methods for increasing the focussing powers of your children instead.

    ## SPECIAL UPDATE ##
    20 February 2002
    Another environmental impact on the ability of the frontal lobe to function properly is how people smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol or certain other drugs can actually switch off the frontal lobes from performing its "balancing" job of combining L- and R-brain subconscious and/or conscious thinking for the period of time of taking the drugs, thereby causing the L- and R-brain to send raw "unbalanced" patterns in memory directly to each other and/or to other parts of the brain such as the visual and auditory cortex (ie. hallucinations). If these raw patterns should continue through regular periods of drug taking, the brain can re-record these unbalanced patterns in memory until long-term behaviour is affected. That is why scientists have now found a link between taking hallucinatory drugs and schizophrenia. So if a person has trouble creating balanced thoughts and behaviour, make sure his/her environment is free of drugs.

    ## SPECIAL UPDATE ##
    26 May 2004
    Low-powered pulsing magnetic fields are now being used by some medical professionals to help agitate and create some form of activity in the neurons and to increase blood flow in the frontal lobes so as to treat unbalanced behaviours of the brain such as depression and bipolar disease in a controlled fashion. The technique is known as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator (TMS).

    ## SPECIAL UPDATE ##
    24 April 2007
    Another scientist applying the transcranial magnetic stimulation technique is Professor Allan Snyder at the Centre for the Mind in Sydney, Australia. His current and somewhat controversial research is to block the functions of the left hemisphere as a means of temporarily amplifying the creative abilities of the R-brain. Using two large coils to create a pulsing magnetic field in the L-brain, he believes it is possible to increase the detail and quality of the creative drawings produced by people who never had those creative drawing abilities before.

    Professor Allan Snyder

    Professor Allan Snyder experimenting with the transcranial magnetic stimulator with a willing participant in order to test for enhanced R-brain abilities.

    The controversy in Professor Snyder's work stems from the fact that when he uses the same individual again and again to help reveal how the technique seems to improve drawing abilities it is possible for critics to argue the improvements in drawing abilities could be the result of "practice makes perfect". Perhaps if two test subjects described as identical twins of no noted creative drawing abilities were brought into the experiment and have one practicing to draw and another using the transcranial magnetic stimulation technique it might be possible to make more definitive differences which might support his theory.

    At any rate, other experiments conducted worldwide suggest the more realistic and detailed the drawing is from R-brain dominant people, the more likely those people were described as having a good L-brain memory throughout their lives. It is almost as if the R-brain is trying to bring these specific and detailed patterns held in memory (both short-term and long-term) together to form a large-scale pattern in the mind of the person which is ultimately revealed in the drawing.

    To put it another way, all these specific patterns retained in memory (possibly to reinforce long-held beliefs or simply kept in short-term memory until the brain sees their relevance in the grander scheme of things) by the L-brain appear to get revived and flow uninhibited from the R-brain into the frontal cortex. But whether the patterns are relevant or not according to the rigid L-brain view based on certain beliefs is not considered when the R-brain dominates. Somehow the R-brain sees the interrelationships between seemingly unrelated patterns and brings them together in the frontal cortex to form the picture.

    Finally, this picture can be particularly persistent for R-brain dominant people as the large scale pattern derived from the individual specific patterns are reinforced or maintained by the R-brain until such time as another large-scale pattern is found and presented in the frontal cortex for the individual to see.

  6. For young boys (or girls), it may be good to have a stable and strong father figure to help them focus on tasks for a period of time (hopefully interesting ones when we apply our emotions). Fathers, if given the time and opportunity away from the expectations required of them by society at work, can provide enormous benefit for stable learning, fun and essential encouragement necessary for young boys to grow into mentally healthy, happy and well-adjusted individuals.

  7. For women, this should be rephrased as "The quickest way to do many things is to do many things at a time." Why? Because women tend to be more multiskilled than men.

    Doing many tasks need not necessarily imply a better brain. This is because the more tasks you do, the less time you generally have to think about all the tasks. So women may be very good at doing many repetitive tasks in a short-space of time (eg. reception and data-entry work), but thinking about creative ways to make each task more enjoyable, efficient and relevant may not be seen as a high priority.

    Men, on the other hand, have the ability to do one thing at a time. This is their skill. They can think about a task to a greater depth and ignore all irrelevant issues for a while (if the frontal cortex of men are well-trained). This gives men the ability to decide how important a task is and, if important, to improve on the task for greater efficiency and effectiveness. This is how men can give the impression of multiskilling: after a period of time. Men can complete a number of tasks and do it exceptionally well by doing them one at a time and with greater improvements and effectiveness in completing the tasks each time they do it.

    It is like the story of the man who constantly goes away to sharpen his axe and later comes back to finish cutting the wood. He often achieves much more this way than another person constantly cutting the wood (and probably trying to do other things as well without realising he needs time to sharpen his axe to achieve more).

    If parents and teachers need extra help for boys to develop and grow to have more effective brains, consider visiting the following sites:

    http://www.boysforward.com/.

    ## SPECIAL UPDATE ##
    27 April 2004
    Under new projects announced today by the Australian Federal (Howard) Government, 11 NSW schools will receive up to A$100,000 in funding to implement boy-specific teaching and welfare programs with the aim of improving social, literacy, and creativity among young boys. Known as lighthouse schools, the emphasis will be on L-brain skills including literacy, enhancing information technology skills and closer relationships with fathers or other form of male contact in special summer camps not unlike those in the US. But some effort will be made to balance this with some creative arts such as drama, dancing and painting.

  8. Eek, I goofed up!: The Strait Times (Recruit section). 7 July 2001, p.R1.

  9. Eek, I goofed up!: The Strait Times (Recruit section). 7 July 2001, p.R1.

  10. A US study in April 2004 is claiming 1 hour or more of watching fast-moving images and passively hearing short stories, advertisements, or ideas that change regularly on television is creating ADHD among children as young as 5 years of age. It is as if children are unable to train their minds to focus on a subject for long periods of time. There is a feeling among some "L-brain" people (eg. scientists) that this study is probably another way for the Americans to create social problems in an attempt to provide a lucrative solution. On the other hand, "R-brain" people (eg. artists) believe L-brain types are afraid to admit there could be a problem with the current approach to teaching and entertaining kids through fast-moving aids. Only more research will determine whether this claim is true.

 
Copyright © 1999 SUNRISE Information Services. All rights reserved.