Money was deposited in the brain

Peter Smirnov, <url>Global equality and complete rejection of money, it turns out, are impossible for physiological reasons.

There are areas in the brain that clearly define social status and monetary reward. Neurophysiologists have found out where they are and what happens inside the skull when a person's position changes relative to their own kind.

The third stage of the development of human society according to Marx will have to wait a little – at least until our brain is rebuilt. In the meantime, the lumpen who have not found their class will have to take the word of two teams of scientists who have published their work in the journal Neuron.

American and Japanese neurophysiologists have studied the brain's response to two of the most famous and powerful stimuli – money and power, or rather, financial reward and social status. It turned out that both factors are "projected" into one part of the brain – the striatum (striatum), located at the base of the hemispheres.

This is by no means the first attempt to formalize social status at the level of an individual organism. However, previously, scientists who did not have functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) had to be content with observations and statistics. In particular, it was shown that an insignificant position in society, regardless of earnings, does not have the best effect on health – the frequency of cardiovascular diseases increases, and life expectancy decreases. The same is true in the animal world – according to the observations of zoologists, in animals with a well-developed social hierarchy, the lower "classes" live less and get sick more often.

It is logical to assume that the cause of all troubles and misfortunes lies in a certain area of the brain that displays social status.

Neurophysiologists went in search of her, having previously armed themselves with fMRI scanners.

The difference in the activity of certain parts of the brain in "leaders and servants" has already been recently demonstrated by the example of monkeys. However, then it was not possible to determine how the change in status itself is reflected and what happens when someone becomes a leader.

This time the experiments were conducted on human volunteers, who were tested for strength with the help of money and a fictional hierarchy.

Norihiro Sadato and his colleagues found that our brains respond equally to monetary rewards and to improving reputation.

Volunteers under the control of a magnetic resonance tomograph capable of assessing changes in blood flow and thereby determining the activity of different parts of the brain "accidentally" pulled one of the three cards. Depending on the result, they received a cash prize. Since scientists turned out to be knowledgeable in the field of mixing maps, the subjects each time came across a map "necessary" for scientists, which allowed Sadato to determine the active site.

In the second case, all participants were asked to fill out a small questionnaire and make a short film about themselves, after which they showed comments from "anonymous" critics, which, of course, were neurophysiologists who represented each volunteer from the bad side, then from the good side.

Both of these "rewards" led to the activation of one part of the brain – the striatum.

In humans, the striatum is not as developed as in birds, in which they perform the same functions as the large hemispheres in mammals. However, its role is no less important from this: the striatum regulates muscle tone, reducing it; participates in the regulation of the work of internal organs; in the implementation of various behavioral reactions (food-producing behavior); in addition, the striatum takes part in the formation of conditioned reflexes.

The second work, carried out by Karolina Zink and her colleagues, revealed the reaction of individual regions already to the change in status.

To do this, 72 volunteers had to play several games with a computer. Like her Japanese colleagues, Zinc couldn't resist a little scam: the participants were told that two others, who did not actually exist, were playing according to these rules at the same time. At the same time, the subject was shown a "rating" displayed with asterisks – both his own and "strangers". Naturally, the rating was exactly what the scientists were interested in.

In the first case, it was necessary to react as quickly as possible to a change in the color of the circle on the monitor. Moreover, in this experiment, regardless of the efforts, the rating did not change. In the second case, the rating changed continuously, because the task was more difficult – participants were required to determine which of the boxes depicted had more black dots. The third experiment allowed us to weed out the "social effect" of ordinary pride. The subject was playing with the computer, unaware that the results were "rigged" in this and in all previous cases.

The ventral (anterior) region of the striatum reacted only to a change in social status, regardless of its own success in the game.

Awareness of the role of catching up activated the area in the frontal part of the brain, while the understanding of the instability of the situation and the significance of one's own decisions, as in the second experiment with a changing rating, was immediately reflected in the mid-frontal area.

The status of the leader affected the activity of the "planning areas", while the status of the worst player caused manifestations of emotional disorders and frustration in the brain.

The experiment was not without "cruelty" – the scientists set up several situations and proved that the more pleasure the participants got from winning, the more upset they were when they found themselves in losers, at least according to fMRI.

The practical conclusion from this work was not long in coming. Now scientists can explain the strange behavior of patients undergoing treatment for Parkinson's disease with the help of dopamine agonist drugs. Some patients after treatment have a strange craving for gambling, and exclusively for money.

Those who have never encountered this, and so it was known that power and money are closely linked. It turns out that the connection lies in the brain. So a pre-class society according to Marx either never existed, or over these thousands of years our brain has undergone significant changes. Let's wait a few thousand more, and maybe a classless society and lack of money will cease to be a utopia.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru
24.04.2008