(h) TROM - 1.3 Environment

http://tromsite.com - Full documentary, very well organized (download, youtube stream, subtitles, credits, share, get involved, and many more)

Documentary´s description :
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TROM (The Reality of Me) represents the biggest documentary ever created, it is also the only one that tries to analyse everything : from science to the monetary system as well as real solutions to improve everyone's life.

A new and ´real´ way to see the world.

"Before the Big-Bang, till present, and beyond."
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Let's take a look at old Siggy; Sigmund Freud, okay, who has definitely had his run.

He says behavior is influenced by parents, dreams, jokes, and sex;

not necessarily in that order, but, what does that say?

This is the environment camp once again, right?

Many scientific researches have shown an obvious fact,

that the behavior of a human being is created by the environment.

If genes predispose a certain behavior but the environment doesn't support it,

then that behavior won't manifest, so in this case, genes aren't important.

We live in a remarkable time

the age of genomics.

Your genome is the entire sequence of your DNA.

Your sequence and mine are slightly different.

That's why we look different.

I've got brown eyes,

you might have blue, or gray;

but it's not just skin-deep.

The headlines tell us

that genes can give us scary diseases,

maybe even shape our personality,

or give us mental disorders.

Our genes seem to have

awesome power over our destinies.

And yet, I would like to think that

I am more than my genes.

Likewise, every connectome

changes over time.

What kind of changes happen?

Well, neurons, like trees,

can grow new branches,

and they can lose old ones.

Synapses can be created,

and they can be eliminated;

and synapses can grow larger,

and they can grow smaller.

Second question:

What causes these changes?

Well, it's true;

to some extent they are programmed by your genes.

But that's not the whole story,

because there are signals: electrical signals,

that travel along the branches of neurons,

and chemical signals,

that jump across from branch to branch.

These signals are called neural activity.

And there's a lot of evidence

that neural activity

is encoding our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions,

our mental experiences.

And there's a lot of evidence that neural activity

can cause your connections to change.

And if you put those two facts together,

it means that your experiences

can change your connectome.

And that's why every connectome is unique,

even those of genetically identical twins.

The connectome is where nature meets nurture.

And it might be true

that just the mere act of thinking

can change your connectome;

an idea that you may find empowering.

Did you all hear that question about,

the issue about gender being socially created, versus being biological and hormonal?

Of course, I come down a bit more on the biological side, obviously, but..

I now believe, having come full circle after studying biology for many years,

and really believing in the way, that the nature-nurture debate, in a lot of ways, I think...is dead,

at this point, for the following reason:

the brain is very, very malleable;

we're all born with male or female predispositions,

and then we'll have hormones that increase that circuitry

for behavior, which is what a hormone is supposed to do.

A hormone's job is to make us predisposed to certain behaviors.

However, the way we're raised, for example, little boys:

Studies have shown that little boys who were told they're not supposed to touch something,

they often will grab it and touch it, whereas a little girl can be given a verbal demand not to touch it.

Little boys world-wide are punished more frequently, for, transgressions.

Little boys are told not to cry...that they're supposed to man-up, right?

Even at a young age, dads sometimes are very very scared if their little boy is

making any version of effeminate behavior.

For example, I remember flying coast to coast with a guy who sat next to me.

He said his 18 month-old son, when he saw his sister open a present, earlier that week

-it was a purse, she'd gotten a purse,

she was four years old- and he said, "Oh, can I have a purse too?"

And he said he found himself like someone had kicked him in the stomach,

and he just yelled at his 18 month-old son, "No, boys don't have purses!"

And he was reporting to me this event, and he felt so ashamed and embarrassed afterwards;

because he realized his little boy wasn't expressing anything in terms of being effeminate or not.

So, these things: the way we raise little boys, and we raise little girls,

our brain circuits are so malleable. For example, we weren't born learning to play the piano, right?

You do practice, practice, practice.

You can retrain brain circuits, to do a variety of things.

And I think all of our life we can be gender-trained, to be more one way or the other.

Males' facial expressions for example, when they measure them and put electrodes on them,

and show them a grizzly photograph that is supposed to make you cringe and emotional,

their facial expressions, versus females', actually show more emotional response

in the time before it becomes conscious. And right after the one second level when it becomes conscious,

they start to freeze down, their facial muscles, for frowning or smiling.

In females, facial muscles actually amplify, and the males' go down.

Scientists believe, the hypothesis is, that males have been trained to suppress their emotional feelings.

So, thanks for the question; it's a moving target for a lot of our lives.

And the ways we're raised, and what we're allowed to do, what boys are and not allowed to do,

has a lot to do with how they grow up to be men.

Think about the way you act, your facial expression,

the values accepted by you, the way you talk, everything,

and remember that they are a result of your environment.

The human brain has no mechanism to recognize what is relevant or not.

There is no such thing as bad, criminal, lazy,

brilliant people, thieves, or racists.

Only people predisposed to such behavior.

But if the environment doesn't trigger them,

the behavior never manifests.

Remember:

the human brain has no mechanism to recognize what is relevant or not.

The most extreme case is represented by feral children.

A feral child is a human child who has lived isolated

from human contact from a very young age,

and has no -or little- experience of human care,

loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language.

Feral children lack the basic social skills

which are normally learned in the process of enculturation.

For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet,

have trouble learning to walk upright

and display a complete lack of interest in human activity around them.

Oxana Malaya began her life living with dogs,

rejected by her mother and father, she somehow survived for six years,

living wild, before being taken into care.

There are few cases of feral children who've been able to fully compensate

for the neglect they've suffered.

Oxana is now 22,

but her future still hangs in the balance.

Have scientists learned enough from previous cases to rehabilitate her?

For six years, Oxana Malaya spent her life living in a kennel, with dogs.

Totally abandoned by her mother and father,

she was discovered, behaving more like an animal,

than a human child.

For two centuries, wild children have been the object of fascinating study.

Raised without love, or social interaction,

wild -or feral- children pose the question:

What is it that makes us human?

Oxana was born in November, 1983.

When the baby girl was born, she weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces, and didn't have any abnormalities.

Genie had spent 13 years, isolated,

in a nearly empty room, devoid of any social contact.

Although not suffering from any mental illness,

because of that environment, she behaved like a mentally ill person.

She could not create social connections,

she could not speak; even her walking was strange.

After a while, due to the insistence of others to rehabilitate her,

Genie began to express herself through sign language

and socialize with people.

They also took responsibility for Genie's therapy,

attempts to help her grapple with the horror of her childhood.

Okay baby, open your mouth!

In this primitive role-playing exercise,

Marilyn pretends to be Genie's mother.

Hurry up! Hurry up, because there isn't any time.

Father's gonna be angry.

Marilyn tries to elicit memories of Genie's past.

I wonder what you're thinking.

Genie is the extreme evidence of environmental influence.

Despite all she'd been through, Genie's troubles were not over.

In her first foster home, Genie was severely punished for vomiting.

The experience was so traumatizing, Genie ended up back in children's hospital,

where the Riglers offered assistance.

You couldn't help it.

So now you're keeping you're mouth closed so you won't vomit.

Genie was afraid to open her mouth.

If you do not expose a human being to murder, rape, pedophilia,

zoophilia, necrophilia, weapons, racism,

then he will not know what they are.

It's like trying to imagine

a color youâve never seen before.