I just watched The Crazies, a remake of Romero's 1973 original of the same name, about a small town struck by an outbreak of insanity following a biological weapon accident. It's not for the faint of heart: I was unsettled by a number of the scenes and I watch a lot of horror movies.Which is to say, it's excellent. It maintains a high pitch of tension through the whole 100 minutes, something that a lot of horror doesn't manage. All too often, I find, a movie will start out scary enough, but then by some point about half way through it's effectively turned into an action movie.
This happens when the nature of the monster/killer/zombies have been revealed and all the protagonists have to do is fight it out - with the uncertainty gone, the horror goes, too. Without giving too much away, The Crazies avoids this trap. (The last great horror movie I saw, Paranormal Activity, does too, although in a very different way).
Of course the real reason I liked this movie is that it's got some neuroscience. The Crazies is (spoilers) about an engineered virus that infects the brain. Early symptoms include fever, blank stares, flattened emotions and stereotypies. This then progresses, over the course of about 48 hours, to psychopathic aggression, at least in some cases, although other victims just become confused. The "crazies" are somewhat like zombies - they have a Zombie Spectrum Disorder, one might say - but they retain enough of their personality and intelligence to be capable of much more elaborate and calculating violence than the average braaaaaaains-muncher, which is what makes them so disturbing.
Could a virus do that? Rabies, notoriously, causes aggression in animals and humans, although the incubation period is weeks rather than days, and aggression is only one of many neurological symptoms of the disease. But maybe an engineered virus could achieve a more specific effect if it was able to selectively infect the area of the brain reported on in this rather scary paper:
The authors report a patient with advanced PD, successfully treated by bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, who developed acute transient aggressive behavior during intraoperative electrical test stimulation. The electrode responsible for this abnormal behavior was located within the lateral part of the posteromedial hypothalamic region (triangle of Sano). The authors suggest that affect can be dramatically modulated by the selective manipulation of deep brain structures.
9 comments:
Well, if there was a smart toxin to do some bad stuff...
Let's kick into hypothalamus to increase primal hunger. Prefrontal cortex with instrumental aggression.
And kill some emotional pathways. In fact, the last should be the prime concern. I don't think I could eat my girlfriend while crying about what I am doing. :D
Zombie science is fun and I think that it is actually quite plausible, the creation of zombie nation that is. It only takes some mad scientist or a government's secret project gone bad. Though, I do prefer the inhabited by true-human-only version of Earth, for many reasons. :)
Life is more interesting than fiction:
Behavioral changes induced by Toxoplasma infection of rodents are highly specific to aversion of cat odors
Ajai Vyas
Seon-Kyeong Kim
Nicholas Giacomini
John C. Boothroyd
Robert M. Sapolsky
Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and
Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Departments of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
February 14, 2007
Abstract
The protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii blocks the innate aversion of rats for cat urine, instead producing an attraction to the pheromone; this may increase the likelihood of a cat predating a rat. This is thought to reflect adaptive, behavioral manipulation by Toxoplasma in that the parasite, although capable of infecting rats, reproduces sexually only in the gut of the cat. The “behavioral manipulation” hypothesis postulates that a parasite will specifically manipulate host behaviors essential for enhancing its own transmission. However, the neural circuits implicated in innate fear, anxiety, and learned fear all overlap considerably, raising the possibility that Toxoplasma may disrupt all of these nonspecifically. We investigated these conflicting predictions. In mice and rats, latent Toxoplasma infection converted the aversion to feline odors into attraction. Such loss of fear is remarkably specific, because infection did not diminish learned fear, anxiety-like behavior, olfaction, or nonaversive learning. These effects are associated with a tendency for parasite cysts to be more abundant in amygdalar structures than those found in other regions of the brain. By closely examining other types of behavioral patterns that were predicted to be altered we show that the behavioral effect of chronic Toxoplasma infection is highly specific. Overall, this study provides a strong argument in support of the behavioral manipulation hypothesis. Proximate mechanisms of such behavioral manipulations remain unknown, although a subtle tropism on part of the parasite remains a potent possibility.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/15/6442.short
For longer discussion and video go to
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index.html
Mindblowing!
For reasons highlighted in the post, I am strongly skeptical that humans will populate the galaxies. Its kind of sad, but our beautiful biology, that which gave us rational thought will one day be stripped from us by that very same biology.
Cheers mate!
Have you seen the spanish film "rec"?. The subject is similar to the one you talk, and for me, it is the scariest film I have ever seen.
In the United states was made a remake of this film "Quarantine"
I've yet to see .rec, but I loved Quarantine. Although I still slightly preferred The Crazies.
Wow! I knew it was rabies! i've never seen the movie, but i've heard enough about it (and rabies) to make the conenction!
Nice! This one, i actually enjoyed reading a lot!
Also what ML, MD said ion the study is interesting too.
I've found that if a learned behavior is done early in life the person or animal is likely to become "desensitized" to why the fear or attraction was made. Like so many people talk about phobias, an "irrational" fear. Mine are needles (injections). I thought this was an irrational fear until I learned from being born prematuraly that I had been stabbed with several needles and lived in a world of a virtually constant release of substance P, noradrenalin and cortisol. This also depleted my endorphin count down to practically zero (which probably explains my neurosis/psychotic disorders, which I've been able to correct by avoiding caffeine, sugar and by using DLPA). Actually, it's because of th DLPA I can come on this site and post these comments anyway! Normally, sites like this cause me great fear (fear of being critisized, which has happened most of my life regaurding things i get a great boost of phenylethylamine over) or in other words, things that I love.
It was that trauma from childhood bullying that made me fear sharing and speaking of my interests not to menion my "irrational" fear of magnifying glasses) after they started burning the ants with it, then tried to burn me with it! That is most certainly NOT irrational, but because it was so ingrained within my subconcious I couldn't actively recall it, therfor it was my "irrational" fear.
Now, my "irrational" fears don't seem too "irrational". I think the reason why we consider some of these fears to be "irrational" is because we cannot remeber the specific incident that caused them. Other times, unstable brain chemistry can cause it, but that still doesn't make it "irrational". Technically, I can find that the term "irrational" is mainly used as a lack of understanding as to how one aquired said fear or even love.
Neat article! Very neat indeed!
I wrote it in a reasonable format. Maybe it's you who didn't understand. of course, I wrote it i can understand it.
I was commening another persons' comment about how an aversion became an attraction, and that triggered a memory of something about wat I leanred about phobias involving sensory memory.
I was clarifying the ideas of "irrational" fears (phobias) and how the might not be "irrational" at all but caused by a deep subconcious memory that a person cannot remember due to it being buried in the subconcious.
I do have my writing style and I try to write in a more 'reasonable' style, but, for some reason, I'm always, ALWAYS negatively criticized and bombarded with hate for it! I don't know why though...it's discouraged me from writing.
Ridalin and adorl ruined my days in elementary when I was suposed to be learning about how to write. That's imapired my ability to write in a "formal" sesne.
Also I did have an energy drink when I wrote that so i was wired on caffeine and sugar...that can do some bad stuff!
Ananymous mkes a good pint on using the hypothalamus foinducing hunger insatiable eough to crave human flesh!
I was looking for this information, thanks for put in this easy way, I mean in a easy way to understand it jajaja, well until the next time.
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