One Brain's journey

That problems with working memory may have a role in schizophrenia has been touched on before in this blog and now a new study indicates what that role might be. Previously scientists thought that the one problem with the disorder could be with automation processing of ordinary tasks i.e. learning by repetition to do things on auto pilot. Dutch researcher Tamar Van Raalten studied the role of working memory in automation and established that it is not the automation process but the processing of new information that was the cause of problems.

Van Raalten, using an fMRI scanner, asked subjects to perform tasks in which they had to remember a series of letters, something that would be accompished in working memory, and discovered that the more the tasks were repeated, the lower the brain activity became in the areas of the brain associated with working memory. But this activity was not compensated for by other areas of the brain involved in long term memory. By automating the letter series the subjects were releasing working memory capacity allowing it to process new information. Van Raaltlen concluded that this restructuring of incoming information was another function of working memory, a process known as chunking. For example to remember 1232673445 you would clump numbers together as you might a phone number, 113 276 3445 . This allowed working memory to be freed up to process new information. Her initial conclusion, in observing schizophrenic patients performing the same tasks, was that their working memory was less efficient and automation did not proceed as well as with healthy subjects. Van Raalten went on to observe that schizophrenic patients process less information than healthy subjects. However, the testing revealed automation proceeded as well as with healthy subjects but subsequently, working memory was not released to deal with new tasks. Further testing revealed that the working memory in schizophrenic subjects struggled with the processing of information that continually changed, leading to the conclusion that Schizophrenics may have more of a tendency to adopt automatic strategies in circumstances that demand flexible behavior.

I have a very clear memory from grade eight when the teacher, who I really liked and knew was a good teacher even at 14,  called each student up and pointed to her desk where there was a sheet of paper with each student’s graduating mark. My average was just over 75% so it was at the honors level but she was not satisfied. “You can do better,” she said.

I knew I was lazy. I didn’t like doing homework, but grade eight was the first time I realized I was fairly bright. I had only just started to read on my own and almost immediately began to devour books at the rate of one-a-week.  I could do the homework at the same time the teacher put it on the blackboard and so it was completed at the same time as she finished.  One day she stopped in the middle of putting the homework on the board and turned around.  She caught me but I thought she would be impressed at how quickly I was completing the work.  She wasn’t.   She said. “It’s homework. You do it at home.” Another teacher might have been impressed but not Miss Hamilton. She knew about potential and she knew I was operating below mine.

In high school, it caught up with me in grade ten which marked the first time I failed a test. It was French Grammar, and I found memorizing vocabulary painful. I was in an experimental accelerated program at the time, the goal of which was to complete four years of high school in three. The entrance requirement was a minimum IQ of 125.  I had no trouble in grade nine. Grade ten was a different story, however, I completed the program and graduated with what was then referred to as junior matriculation in the three years. Only half of the 42 students who began the program in grade nine graduated with grade twelve in the three years.  Back in those days there was grade thirteen and you needed grade thirteen to get into university.  I went into a grade thirteen class a year younger than most of the other students.

I thought I was going to Royal Military College and so took the courses that matched the entrance requirements: algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics and chemistry. I had a minor interest in chemistry but the rest of the subjects bored me to tears. I failed all of those required subjects except chemistry and it was a water shed moment in my life.  I can still remember what happened as I settled in to study, much too close to the actual exams.  There was too much to cover and I found that as I read something in a text book, or in my notes, I would come to the bottom of the page and realize I hadn’t retained a thing that I just had read.  I would start again only to have it happen again.  I panicked and went to tell them at the office at school. I got a strange reception because of my school record up to that time and the fact that I had done four years of high school in three and, of course, they had no idea why I was there. Neither did I. Looking back now I think I was probably looking for some understanding of what was happening to me.  Back then I was just another lazy kid who had got as far as I had on brains but didn’t have he staying power to excel.  I still have nightmares about that time.

I know now what happened but it has baffled me most of my life even though my university experience was worse. It was the maths and the sciences. It was the first instance for me of what my performance is like doing something that es not stimulating or in which I have no interest.

There was a lot more to come…