A Baby’s Smile Is A Natural High
In the News (From sciencedaily.com): “The baby’s smile that gladdens a mother’s heart also lights up the reward centers of her brain, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers….
“To study the relationship [between mothers and infants], Strathearn and his colleagues asked 28 first-time mothers with infants aged 5 to 10 months to watch photos of their own babies and other infants while they were in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The machine measures blood flow in the brain. In the scans, areas of increased blood flow “light up,” giving researchers a clue as to where brain activity takes place….
“The areas stimulated by the sight of their own babies were those associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine….
“‘These are areas that have been activated in other experiments associated with drug addiction,’ said Strathearn. ‘It may be that seeing your own baby’s smiling face is like a ‘natural high.’…
“’Understanding how a mother responds uniquely to her own infant, when smiling or crying, may be the first step in understanding the neural basis of mother–infant attachment,’ said Strathearn.”
My comment: This is a chemical manifestation of our egoistic nature. Say, a person obtains the property of love of the other. Will the drug of love “dopamine” get secreted in the person if he sees someone else’s child or a stranger? Is this “drug” the anticipated sensation of the Creator, “the Good Who does Good”? Can we really use MRI and blood analysis to determine whether a person has attained love of the other?
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Shalom Rav
As a student of biotechnology, I have plus minus profound knowledge in brainchemistry and in the system of neurotransmitters and the published result doesn’t suprise me.
What really interests me is wether it acutally is possible to measure spiritual progress by biochemical parameters of the physical body. You state that the release of DA is a chemical manifestation of our egoistic nature. You further stated in various lessons that we have to transform this egoistic nature in to an altruistic one. I therefore want to ask in a concrete manner wheter it then will be possible to measure this changed nature even on a physical (illusionary) level by the methods mentioned or similar ones.
Arvut
Martin