The price of (brain) complexity

Before launching into this post, let me state that I'm not a neurobiologist, psychologist or psychiatrist. I'm writing based on what I've read about neurobiology; I claim no expertise in the subject, other than the fact that I've got a brain.

It's generally believed that the human brain is the most complex object on Earth--certainly more complex than even the most powerful supercomputers. However, we've learned from experience that the more complex a system is, the more there is to go wrong. To keep the brain from failing in myriad ways, evolution has selected for a brain that, through a combination of redundancy and plasticity, is fault-tolerant. In other words, the brain can continue to operate normally (or more precisely, within a range of normality,) even with some damage. That damage may come from genetics, environmental factors such as pollution, or physical injury such as concussions, hemorrhages or tumors.

When the brain sustains damage beyond its capacity to compensate for, the result is mental illness. Given the brain's complexity, most human brains are already operating at or near the limits of normality just from compensating for the normal damage that accumulates throughout life. (In the brain, only the olfactory bulb and the subventricular zone contain nerve cells that regenerate in adults.) That's one reason why some neuroscientists theorize that conditions such as schizophrenia have both a genetic and environmental basis. For example, having a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia is a necessary but insufficient condition for a patient to start showing symptoms; an environmental stressor, or normal age-related changes, appears to be required in order to actually trigger the condition.

As we put more of a cognitive load on ourselves, we may very well be pushing our brains beyond their ability to compensate:

• Only twenty years ago, we were able to cope with the flow of incoming information, but today, we're continuously bombarded with text messages, emails, tweets, alerts and social media posts via our smartphones, tablets and PCs.
• We have to decide what to pay attention to, what to ignore, and what to postpone. For the messages we pay attention to, we have to understand them and decide how to respond.
• Despite the long-term recovery in the U.S. economy, employment opportunities remain diminished for recent college graduates and middle-aged workers. In addition, with the shift from permanent to contract jobs, even people who are employed need to be constantly searching for new jobs in preparation for when their contract expires or is terminated.
• The sharing economy (for example, companies like Uber and Lyft) is changing the nature of work from fairly regular schedules with reliable incomes to demand-driven work with both unpredictable schedules and income.

Technology can help with some of the added stressors: For example, automatic filters can screen out spam and organize incoming messages by priority, and newer cars have multiple sensors that can help prevent accidents. However, technology is doing far more to add to the cognitive load than it's doing to relieve it. In addition, the change in the nature of work from semi-permanent to temporary and demand-driven is unlikely to be reversed. Therefore, the amount of environmental stress will continue to rise.

My hypothesis is that we're likely to see a rise in mental illness as a result of these stressors--most likely in the forms of depression, anxiety disorders, domestic violence and violent crimes outside the home, inability to hold onto jobs not caused by the inherent transitional nature of temporary work, and suicide. Interruption-free weekends or smartphone-free vacations, which are still seen as unusual, are likely to become commonplace self-therapies to deal with the consequences of ever-increasing cognitive loads. In short, we need to become aware of the increasing cognitive stress that we're subject to, and come up with strategies for coping with the stress.

Off topic: How to respond to the Arizona massacre?

Like many people, I was stunned by the massacre in Tucson, Arizona last Saturday. Since then, many people have tried to understand why it happened, and how to prevent future massacres from happening. I claim no expertise in the subject whatsoever; these are simply my thoughts about how we can move forward.

• Jared Lee Loughner is clearly mentally deranged, and there was ample evidence that he was a threat to others from his behavior at Pima Community College, as well as from his YouTube videos. Frankly, the students and faculty at Pima were very lucky that he didn't stage his massacre there, rather than at the shopping center.
  
  Over the years, many, if not most of the massacres and assassinations in the U.S. have been staged by clearly deranged individuals (and in the case of Columbine High School, two deranged students.) Most of these tragedies end with the shooter committing suicide, unless they're prevented from doing so by others. The Discovery Communications hostage incident last September, which luckily resulted in the death of only the gunman, was staged by James J. Lee, who was clearly disturbed and had staged protest events at Discovery's headquarters before the hostage-taking incident.
  
  We have poor methods of identifying people who are potential threats to themselves or others, and equally poor ways of getting them into treatment. At least in the cases of people who have demonstrated that they represent a threat, we need better ways to compel them to undergo qualified psychiatric evaluation. We also need to both increase and improve the treatment options for such people. In many area of the country, mental health facilities are so overcrowded and have such long waiting lists that people who represent a threat can't get into treatment for days or weeks.
• Even if Loughner had been identified as a threat to himself or others, and even if he had been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, he still would have been able to purchase the Glock 19 and ammunition that he used in the massacre. Under Arizona law, the only background check that gun stores can use is the Federal "instant" database, and Arizona isn't keeping the Federal database updated. Participation in the Federal database is voluntary by states; gun stores must use it, but each state can decide whether or not to participate, and how often to update its information in the database.
  
  Participation in the database by states should be made mandatory in order to receive Federal funding, and states should also be required to keep the database updated in a timely manner. This is especially true if the state doesn't require any additional checks beyond the Federal database.
• We may have to go back to some form of the assault weapons ban that was in place from 1995 to 2005. Loughner used an extended 30-round magazine that was illegal during the assault weapons ban. He was stopped only when he ran out of ammunition in his first magazine and had to reload. Had he been forced to reload after 12 or 15 shots, the carnage could have been stopped sooner.
• There's a tremendous firestorm of charges and counter-charges as to whether heated political rhetoric, including direct and indirect references to guns and gun-related symbols, contributed to Loughner's actions. There's little evidence that he was influenced by mainstream political movements on either the right or left. There's no mention of conventional political rhetoric in any of the videos that he left behind, or in his statements in class at Pima Community College.
  
  Nevertheless, this is an excellent time to tone down the references to violence in our political rhetoric. Politicians and commentators who advocate or demonstrate violence need to recognize that their authority and celebrity can help unstable individuals to rationalize violent actions. We can disagree with each other without demonizing each other.