All in the Mind: Reptilian Minds in Modern Skulls

This week's All in the Mind episode looks at the evolutionary "kluge" that is the human brain. Beneath all of our higher brain functions we still possess early reptilian and mammalian brains that don't generally give a damn what our rational brain might want.

So when we think about mental illness, or happiness, we might want to look at the evolutionary principles that lead to such mind states.

This week's program airs on Saturday, the 19th.

reptilian minds in modern skulls

This weekend's edition of All in the Mind features:

Stone Age brains in 21st century skulls

Front up to your shrink, and you bring a menagerie of hunter gatherers, anteaters and reptiles from your ancestral past with you. Or so Professor Daniel Wilson and Dr Gary Galambos believe. Both clinical psychiatrists, they provocatively challenge their profession to look to the Darwinian roots of human neuroses, and the evolutionary battleground that is our stone-age brain.

Darwinian models of the mind always provoke rich debate...I look forward to seeing some of that here (or via email, but be brave and blog it instead).

For example, could depression - common as it is - have an evolutionary role? Could bouts of extreme low mood have enhanced our own survival, and the survival of the species back on the Savannah?

We tend to think of traits that are adaptive as being positive, good traits, but the picture is more complex than that. Light and shade are intrinsic to the psyche...it's a mind eat mind world.

Info on the show here (including the audio by Saturday afternoon).

More on depression and evolution here (an archival show that seemed to resonate with the experience of a lot of listeners).

More info on this week's topic:

Evolutionary Psychology; A Primer
Written by acclaimed scientists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby.

The Evolution of Depression: Does it Have a Role?
Program broadcast on All in the Mind, ABC Radio National in 2004.

Evolutionary Psychiatry Interest Group (New South Wales, Australia).
An interest group for "exploring the application of Darwinian evolutionary theories to mental disorders (maladaptive human internal phenomena & behaviours".

Papers by Dr John T. Price (occasional collaborator of Daniel R Wilson on evolutionary psychiatry work)
Includes text of some papers.

Tags: All in the Mind, Reptilian Minds in Modern Skulls, brain, evolution, consciousness, Psychology, depression, Daniel Wilson, Dr Gary Galambos, John T Price, evolutionary psychology