Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What Should We Do
with Our Brain?
'llii
3 "You..Are Your Synapses" 55
The "Synaplic Self" or "Proto-Sdf' 55 "loSE
in Translation:" From the Neuronal to the
Mental 62 Another PJasticiry 68
viii Contents
Introduction
I
In fact, today we can say that there emts a constitutive his- total."3 Even if many things have changed, even if the neu-
toricity of me brain. The aim of this book is precisely to rosciences have become "curring-edge" disciplines, even if
awaken a consciousness of this historicity. ]t is no longer medical imaging has made palpable progress, even if the
important to ask whether brain and consciousness are one ~~cognitive sciences" have attained the status of autonomous
and the same thing-let us put aside this old and specious disciplines,' and even if the number of articles about the
debate. Insread we must constitute this mange ctitical en- CNS in the mainstream press has multiplied, neuronal man
tity, at once philosophical, sci,ntific, and political, that still has no consciousness.
would be a comdousness ofth~ brain. It is to the constitution In this sense, we are stW foteign to ourselves, at ,he
of this new genre---open to everyone-that the question thteshold of this "new wo rld," which we fajJ to realize
What should we do with Our brain? invites us. makes up our very intimacy itself. "We" have no idea who
We have not yet assimilated the results of the tevolution- ~Cwe]] are, no idea what is inside '~us.~] Of course, we have
ary discoveries made over the last fifty years in neurosci- all heard people talk about neuron" synapses, connections,
ences (that is to say, the group of disciplines that study me neIWorks, different types of memory. Everyone knows
anatomy, physiology, and functioning of the central ner- about neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's or
vous system, or CNS'), results that contribute more every Parkinson's. Many of us have seen, in hospitals, the output
day to me refutation of erroneous yet nonetheless mysreri- screen of a functional neural-imaging machine. Some of us
ously persistent pictures we stW have of the brain. Alteady know that today it is possible, thanks to new MRJ and PET
in 1979, in the pteface to his book Neuronal Man, Jean- rechnologies,S to observe the brain in vivo, in real time.
Pierre Changeux declared that our knowledge in the field Everyone says that psychoanalysis is losing importance, and
of neurosciences had experienced everyone hears 'alk, right or wrong, about how the only ef-
fective cure for nervous depression is ,he chemical kind. We
an expansion matched only by the growth of physics all know about MAOIs Or SSRJs;6 we are vaguely familiar
at the beginning of the cencury and molecular biology with the words serotonin, noradnnalin, and nmrotrammit-
in the 1950s. The impact of the discovery of the syn- fer, and we all know about me neuronal origin of tobacco
apse and its functions is comparable to that of the or drug addiction. We know that it is now possible to suc-
atom or DNA. A new world is emerging, and the time oessfully transplant a hand and that ,he brain can reconsti-
seems ripe to open this field of knowledge to a widet rute its bodily schema to include foreign members. We have
public than the specialists and, ifpossible, to share me heard about a cerrain ability on the patt of the nervous sys-
researchers' enthusiasm. 2 tem to tepair, at least partially, some of the damage it sus-
tains. The word resilience is nor unknown to us.?
But this communication, this opening to the public at The problem is ,hat we do not see the link that unifies
large, this mating of enthusiasm, never took place. Twenty- all these phenomena, names, and situations, which are here
five years later, the assessment remains the same: "The im- pucposefuUy listed completely at random and appeat to
passe 0 n the topic of the btain is, with few exceptions, have nothing in common with one anomer. This link exists
2 Introdllction Introductio.. 3
nonetheless and is tied to the activity of the brain, to its sends orders down from on high, a central telephone ex-
mannet of developing itself, of working, of doing. This link change, CD mputer . . . all of this cybernetic frigidity,
is tied to its meaning as a work, our work, and as history, which only serves to alienate us from consciousness,ll itself
our history, and as a singular desriny, our desriny. the only sign of life and liberty in a domain of implacable
The work proper to the brain that engages with history organic necessity) where movement and grace seem to be
and individual experience has a name: plasticity. 'What we reduced to mere reflex.
have called the constitutive historicity of the brain is really Meanwhile, plasticit)' directly contradicts rigidity. It is
nothing other than its plastici 0/. The plasticity of the eNS, its exact antonym. In ordinary speech, ir designates supple-
nervous plasticity, neuroruz{ plasticity, synaptic plasticity-we ness, a facult}' for adaptation, the ability to evolve. Accord-
run into this word in every neutology department of e,rery' ing ro its etymology-from the Greek pfassein, to mold
medical school and of every universiry hospital, in the name -the word plasticity has two basic senses: it means at once
of every neu.roscienrific research teamS -if jumps Out at us, the capacity to receive ftrm (clay is caUed "plastic," for ex-
in its many occurrences every time we Jook under the word
I ample) and the capacity ro give ftrm (as in the plastic .m
brain in the library. h consti;"tes the name of a specific dis- or in pJasric surgery) . Talking abour the plasticiry of the
cipline in scientific journals.' This frequency and omnipres- brain thus amounts to thinking of the brain as something
ence are not at all co ntingent. In fact, plasticity is the modifiable, "formable," and fotmative at ,he same time.
dominant concept of the neurosciences. Todav jt consti- Brain plasticity operates, as we shaU see, on three levels, (I)
tutes their common point of interest) their domj'nant motif, the modeling of neuronal connecrions (developmental plas-
and their privileged operating model, to the extent that it ticity in the embryo and the child); (2) the modification of
allows them to think about and describe the brain as at once neuronal connections (the plasticity of synaptic modulation
an unprecedented dynamic, structure, and organization. throughout life); and (3) the capaciry for repair (poS!-
Our brain is plastic, and we do not know it. We are com- lesional plasticiry). "Plasticity in the nervous sysrem means
pletely ignorant of this dynamic, this organization, and this an altera'ion in structure or function brought about by de-
structure. \l;le continue to believe in the '" rigidiry' of an \'elopment~ experience, or inj LifY. ~'12
entirely genetically determined brain,"lO about which it is But it must be remarked that plasticity is also the capac-
obviously completely in vain to ask: What should we do with ity ro annihilate the very form it is able to receive or creare.
thiS! Even the very word brain frightens us: we don't under- We should not forget tbat plasrique, from which we ger the
stand anything abom it-all these phenomena, aU these words plastiquage and plastiquer," is an explosive substance
folds, ridges, vaUeys, localizations, this jargon that describes made of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose, capable of caus-
(we imagine) a series of fixed, indeed genetically pro- ing violent explosions. We thus note thar plasticity is
grantmed, entities, without any suppleness, without .n y situated berween two e"'remes: on the one side the sensible
improvisational ability. We don't understand this organiza- image of taking form (sculpture or plastic objects), and
tion, which gives rise to so many unsettling metaphors in on the other side that of the annihilation of all form
the register of command and government: a conttoller that (explosion).
6 Introduction I ntto-ductlon _ 7
elementary level of animal life, and thus appears today to But why? Why do they not know it? Why do we persist
be one of the fundamental characteristics of living beings), in our belief that the brain is purely and simply a "ma-
a fragile brain, which depends on us as much as we depend chine," a program without promise? Why are we ignorant
on it-the dizzying reciprocity of reception, donation, of our own plasticity? It is not because of a lack of informa-
and suspension of form that outlines the new structure of tion; exoteric books on the subject of brain plasticity
consciousness? abound. It is not because of a problem with popularization;
We can now understand why Jean-Pierre Changeux we can talk in a very simple way about this plasticity, and
claims that the "discovery of the synapse and its functions" that is precisely what this book is going to do. It is not a
was as revolutionary as the discovery of DNA: the former question of acquaintance but a question, once again, of
brings to the latter a level of precision and a modification consciousness. What must we be conscious of (and not
so significant that it seems almost to contradict it. Brain merely acquainted with) concerning brain plasticity? What
plasticity constitutes a possible margin of improvisation is the nature of its meaning?
with regard to genetic necessity. Today it is no longer We will respond, without playing on words, by saying
chance versus necessity, but chance, necessity, and plastic- that the consciousness we want to raise on the subject of
ity-which is neither the one nor the other. "We know," plasticity has to do with its power to naturalize conscious-
says Changeux, "that the power of genes assures the perpet- ness and meaning. Clearly, if we are not conscious of plas-
uation of broad traits of [cerebral] organization, such as the ticity this is because, in accordance with a merely apparent
form of the brain and of its circumvolutions, the organiza- paradox, it is in fact so familiar to us that we do not even
tion of its areas and the general architecture of cerebral tis- see it; we do not note its presence, like an environment in
sue.... But considerable variability ... remains despite the which we maintain ourselves and evolve without paying at-
genes' power."I? If neuronal function is an event or should tention to it. It has become the form of our world. As Luc
bring about events, this is so precisely because it is itself able Boltanski and Eve Chiapello note in their remarkable work
to create events, to eventualize [evenementialiser] the pro- The New Spirit ofCapitalism, neuronal functioning and so-
gram and thus, in a certain sense, to deprogram it. cial functioning interdetermine each other and mutually
We are living at the hour of neuronal liberation, and we give each other form (here again the power of plasticity), to
do not know it. An agency within us gives sense to the code, the point where it is no longer possible to distinguish them.
and we do not know it. The difference between the brain As though neuronal function were confounded with the
and psychism is shrinking considerably, and we do not natural operation of the world, as though neuronal plastic-
know it. "We" end up coinciding completely with "our ity anchored biologically-and thereby justified-a certain
brain"-because our brain is us, the intimate form of a type of political and social organization. This is precisely
"proto-self,"18 a sort of organic personality-and we do not what is meant by a "naturalization effect." The authors de-
. know it. Humans make their own brain,. but they do not clare that we live in a "connectionist world with the coher-
know they are doing so. ence and immediacy of something natural." But this
8 _ Introduction Introduction _ 9
"naruralizatio n effecr is especially powerful in those disci- functioning. Playing on the title of a well-known work by
plines which, aiming (Q connect biology and society, deri,ce Danid Dennen, we are not seeking to explain or explicate
the social bond from implantation in the otder of living Ot- consciousness, but [Q implicau it. lO To implicate conscious-
ganisms, or construct their representation of society on the ness, to ask what we should do with our brain, means, stan-
basis of a physiological metaphor-nor, as in the old organ- ing from these clarifications, to anempt to develop a
icism, cell uIar differentiation, but much more raday on the critique of what we will call neuronal ideology, [r is thus not
metaphor of the neuron Mth jtS networks and flOWS."l9' just a maner of uncoyering, in the name of brai,n plasticity,
Humans make their own b;ain but they do nor know a cetrain freedom of the brain but rather, startmg from as
that they do so, We are entirdy ignotant of btain plasticiry. precise a srudy as possible of the functioning of this. plasric-
Yet we are not at all ignorant of a cenain kind of organiza- iry, to free this freedom, to disengage it ftom a cenam num-
tion of labor-part-time jobs, tempotary contracts, the de- ber of ideological presuppositions that implicitly govern the
mand for absolute mobiliry and adaptabiliry, the demand entire neuroscientific field and, by a mirror elfecr, me emire
for creativiry . . , The brain is our work, and we do not field of politics--and in this way to rescue philosophy from
know it, Ye, we know very well that we Jive in a reticular its irresponsible torpor. Philosophers, excepting "cognitive
sociery. \'i:'e have understood that ro survive today means to sden risls,]' are not sufficiently jnterested in the pro b]em~
be connected to a uerwork, to be capable of modulating mostly misunderstand the cognitive sciences, and, in the
one's efficacy, We know very well that every loss of supple. end, are simply ignoram of the results of recem research on
ness means rejection, pure and simple. Is the difference ,he brain. So ,hey miss the ideological stakes as weli.
really all rhar grear between the picrure we have of an un- But What should we do with our brain? is not a question
employed person about to be kicked off the dole and the reserved for phiJosophers, for scientists, or for politi-
picture we have of someone suffering from Alzheimer's? We
cians--it is a question for everyone. It should allow us to
know already that individuals construct their Jives as works,
understand why, giyen that the brain is plastic, free, we are
mar ir is each individual's responsibiliry to know wha, he
still always and evetyWhere "in chains"; why, given that me
should do ,,~th himsdf, and that for this he ought not be
activity of the central netyoUS system, as it is revealed today
rigid. There is rhus no need, in a certain sense, to be ac-
in the'light of scientific discoYety, presents reflection ,,~th
quainted with the results of current discoyeries in the neu-
what is doubtless a completely new conception of nansfor-
rosciences in order to have an immediate, daily experience
mation, we nonetheless have the feeling rhat nuthing is
of the neuronal firm ofpolitical and sOcUll fUnctioning, a
form that roday deeply coincides with the current lace of ,ransformed; and why, given that it is clear ,hat there can
capital ism, no longer be any philosophical, political, or scientific ap-
The reference to Marx at the beginning of our analysis proach to history that does not pass thtough a dose analysis
takes on its full importance here. In asking the question of the neuronal phenomeuon, we nonetheless haye the feel-
What should we do with our brain? we don't merely want to ing that we lack a future, and we ask ourselyes What good is
present the reader with some darifications about cerebral having a brain, indeed, what should we do with it?
IntroductioD _ II
10 Inuo duetioD
The guiding question of the present el'forr should rhus or the mind ro a biological entiry. I am myself entirely ma-
be formulared: What should wedfJ so thatcomciousness ofthe terialist, and such affirmations do not shock me at all. The
brain does not pure{r and simply coincide with the spirit of error is in thinking that neuronal man is simply a neuronal
capimlism' We will formulate the following thesis: today, given and not also a political and ideological construction
the true sense of plasticiry is hidden, and we tend constantlv (including of the "neuronal" itself). One notes that many
to substitute for it its mistaken cognate, flexibility. The dif- descriptions of plasticity are in fact unconscious justifica-
ference between these two terms appears insignificant. Nev- tions of a f1exibiliry without limits. Sometimes it seems as
ertheless, flexibility is the ideological avatar of plasticity-at though in nervous systems, from the aplysia" to the
once its mask, its diversion~ and its rontl.s-cation. We are en- human, a faculry is deployed-a faculty described precisely
tirely ignorant of plasticiry hut not at all of /lexibiliry. In in terms of synaptic plasticity-to fold, to render oneself
th is sense, plastidt}' appears as the comjng consciousness of docile vis-a.-vis one's environment, in a word, (0 adapt to
fI exibility. At fi rst glance, the meanings of these tvw terms everything, to be ready for all adjustments. It is as though,
are the same. Under the heading "f1exibiliry," the diction- under the pretext of describing synaptic plasticity, we were
ary gives: "firstly, the character of that which is flexible, of really looking ro show that flexibility is inscribed in the
that wh ich is easily bent (elasticity, suppleness); secondly, brain, as though we knew more about what we could stand
the ab iJi ty to change with ease in order to adapt oneself to than about what we conld create. That said, securing a true
the circumsranees." The examples given to illustrate the plasticiry of the brain means insisting on knowing what it
second meaning are those that evetybody knows: "flexibil- can do and not simply what it can tolerate. By the verb to
ity on the job, of one's schedule (/lex time, conversion), dfJ or to make etaire] we don't mean just "doing" math or
flexible ["ctories." The problem is that these significations piano but making its histoty, becoming the subject of irs
grasp only one of the semantic registers of plasticiry: that of histoty, grasping the connection between the role of genetic
receiving form. To be flexible is to receive a form or im pres- nondererrninism at work in me constiru!ion of the brain
sion, to be able to fold oneself, to take the fold, not to give and the possibili!)' of a social and political nondererminism,
it." To be docile, to not explode. Indeed, what f1exibilitv
in a word, a new' freedom, which is to say: a new meaning
lacks is e resource of giving form, the power to create} t~
tn
jnvent or e'i,'en to erase an impression, the power to styJe. ofh istofl'.
Flexibility is a vague notion, without tradition, without
Flexibility is plastici!}' minus its genius.
22
history, while plasticity is a concept, which is to say: a form
Humans make their own brains, and the>' do not know
of quite precise meanings that bring together and structure
that they do so. Our brain is a work, and ~ do not know
particular cases. This concept has a long philosophical past,
it. Our brain is plastic, and we do not know it. The reason
which has itself remained tOO long in the shadows. I do not
for. this is that most of the time flexibility superimposes ir-
sellon plasticity, even in the midst of scienrific discourses intend to criticize anyone here, and my goal is not polemi-
that take themselves to be describing it entirely "objec- cal. I would simply like to disentangle the notion and the
tively." The mistake in cenain cognhiyjst discourses for in- concept, to make us stop raking the one for the other and
J
stauce, is not rhat they reduce the mental to the neuronal conflating them, as I have intentionally done above, in
Introdu-ction 13
12 Int ro ductio n
speaking ,imultaneo nsly of nervous depression, hand rrans-
plams, and lesion repair. I would like to do rhis in order to
stigmarize the definitional magma in which, in the end, we
all bathe, rhe anrhor of this book along with evetyone else.
Speaking for myself, I wonld say that I have been interesled
for a long time in plasticity, whose genes is and whose
meaning in the philosophical rradition I h,,'e, in pre'{ious
efrom, atrempred 10 elucidate and reconstiture." The srud,'
of ne nronal plas tieity and cetebtal fUnctio ning, and rh~
Plasticity's Fields of Action
reading of important texts by cognirive scientists dedicated
to this functioning, have been much more lhan an enrich-
ment for me: they have been a rrue rest as weU as a confir-
mation, a renewal, and a conctetization of the philosophical
meaning of plasticity. The critical epistemological exercise
carried out in this book thus presents irself as an enterprise
of rectificatiou aud sharpening of the usage of ihis concept.
Bur let us not forger that rhe question W#ot should we M
with our brain? is a question fOr everyone, that it seeks to Between Delermination and Freedom
give birth in everyone to the feeling of a new responsibijj ty,
The inquiry co nducted here thus oughr, beyond the critical In mechanics, a matetial is called plastic if il cannot rerum
imperali\'es jus[ announced, to aJlow anyone who consents to irs inirial form afrer undergoing a deformaiion.' "Plastic"
to follow its path 10 think new modaliries of forming the in this sense js opposed to "elastic." Plastic material retains
self, under the name of "plasricity" and beyond the overly an imprinr and thereby resists endless polymorphism. This
simplistic altemative between rigidity and Jlexibility_ This is the case, for insrance, wi th sculpied marble. Once the
means asking nor "To what point are we flexible?" but srame is finished, ihere is no possible return ro ihe indeter-
rather "To what extenr are we plastid" minacy of the srarring point. So plasticity designates solidity
as much as suppleness, designares the definitive character of
the imptint, of configufalion, or of modification. Accord-
ing to this first Umil or semantic extreme, plasticit)', though
not altogether assimilable to rigidity, marks a certain deter-
minarion of form and imposes a (very Sirict) restriction on
the capacity for deformation, re-formation, or explosion.
We will see thaI this somewhat "dosed" or resrrained signi-
fication is essentially ar work in the developmental plasriciry
14 Introducti.on 15
of neuronal connections tied to the genetic determinism the very paradigm, of the "open" meaning of plasticity. Ac-
that presides over the constitution of every brain. cording to this meaning, plasticity designates generally the
The second limit on the range of the concept of plasticity ability to change one's destiny, to inflect one's trajectory, to
is marked, inversely, by an "open" or unrestrained defini- navigate differently,5 to reform one's form and not solely to
tion. According to this second limit, plasticity designates a constitute that form as in the"closed" meaning. This open
much more effective transformative ability. This involves, meaning is essentially at work in the plasticity ofsynaptic
not an infinite modifiability-we have not yet come back modulation, as we will see when we study the interplay of
around to polymorphism-but a possibility of displacing or the modification of synaptic connections and "secondary
transforming the mark or the imprint, of changing determi- neurogenesis"-the renewal of neurons in the adult brain,
nation in some way. As an example of such a meaning, let starting, precisely, from stem cells.
us consider the properties of so-called "adult" stem cells (at Thus, with plasticity we are dealing with a concept that
work in the adult organism and thereby distinguished from is not contradictory but graduated, because the very plastic-
"embryonic" stem cells). Adult stem cells are nonspecial- ity of its meaning situates it at the extremes of a formal
ized cells found in specialized tissues (the brain, bone mar- necessity (the irreversible character of formation: determi-
row, blood, blood vessels, the retina, the liver, etc.). They nation) and of a remobilization of form (the capacity to
renew themselves, and most of them specialize, in order to form oneself otherwise, to displace, even to nullify determi-
produce all the types of cells in their tissue of origin that nation: freedom). It is this complex, this synthesis, this se-
normally die. This is how, for example, immature blood mantic wealth, that we ought to keep in mind throughout
cells are made out of bone marrow stem cells. But while the our analysis.
majority of adult stem cells generate cells similar to those of
the tissue they come from, it has been discovered that some
The Three Plasticities
of them (notably skin stem cells) can transform themselves
into different types of cells (for example, nerve or muscle We will now look more closely at the biological phenome-
cells). One then says that they "transdifferentiate" them- non of brain plasticity according to its three major roles:
selves, that is, literally, that they change their difference. 2 developmental plasticity, modulational plasticity, and re-
This capacity to differentiate and transdifferentiate parative plasticity.
themselves is called, precisely, stem-cell plasticity. In the
first case-the capacity to differentiate themselves into cells
Developmental Plasticity: The Formation
of the same tissue-stem cells are called multipotent. 3 In the
ofNeuronal Connections
second case-the capacity to develop themselves into types
of cells specific to other tissues-stem cells are called pluri- What do we find in the brain? Billions of neurons (around
.potent. 4 Stem-cell plasticity-which allows us to conceive of twenty billion in humans) connected in a network of innu-
a sort of range of differentiation between rhultipotence and merable links, the synapses. "The human brain," says
pluripotence-is an extremely striking example, perhaps Changeux, "makes one think of a gigantic assembly of tens
exponential growth."24 Like neuronal cohesion, contempo- sociative" ateas of the brain. These multifunctional regions
rary corporate economic and social organization is nor of a are activated in numerous cognitive tasks and form pan of
cemral or centralizing type but rests on a plutality of mobile a different cerebral ne,work each time. We find ourselves
and atomistic centers, deployed according to a connection- fuced wi ,h a complex organization thar no longer proceeds
ist model. In this sense, it appears tha, neutonal function- in a top-down fashion from lransmission to reception to
ing has become the namre of the social even mo re than its rerransmjss ion 0 f information bur fun ctio ns aceo rding to
naturalizing 'oo!. diffetent, extremely complex, interpenetrating levels of teg-
We must insist on this nanual identity in returning lO ulation. 0 ne therefore cannot amibute the directing fimc-
rhe notions of ne,work, delocalizarion, and adaptability, ,ion to just one of them: "The notion of rhe localiza,ion
and in observing how these operate in the 'wo domains- and cartogtaphic organization of the brain must be modu-
cerebral and socioeconomic. lated by the exisrence of a multitude of connec,ions be-
tween btain regions as these have been identified by
hisrology."27 The phenomenon of the potentiation of cir-
Networks
cuits, discussed above, provides evidence mal the nervo us
Cerebral organizarion presupposes the connecrion of neu- system is organized according to multiple interconnecred
rons in networks, which are also called "populations" or functional spaces, always in movement and susceptible to
"assemb~es." In a ne,work, there cannor be, by definition, self-modification.
a privileged vantage point. The network approach is neees- " is obvio usly with reference to ,his type of functioning
sari Iy local, never centralized or centralizing. Withi n the that today's management literature preaches- wo rk in '~flex
brain, writes Changeux, "the fotrnal notion of a ptogram ible, neural" reams," and can claim ,hat ,he manager "is
finds itself replaced by an exhaustive description of ptoper- not [or is no longer] a (hierarchical) boss, but an integrator,
ties~ elements, geometry, and a communication nenvork."2:' a facilirator, an inspiration) a unrner of energies, an enhancer
Thns, for example, the formation of what we call a "mental of lift, meaning, and autonomj'. "l9 The team has faith in
objece'-an image or concept-requires a "correlated, tran- him "inasmuch as he proves ro be a connector, a vector) who
,itory activity, both electrical and chemical, in a large popu- does no' keep rhe information or contacts gleaned from the
Jarion or 'assembly' of neutons in several specific cortical nerwork to hi msel f but redisttibutes them among team
areas." 26 There is no longer a center bur rather discrete as- members. 'Tomorrow's manager should make sure that in-
semblies of neurons forming mobile and momemar)' cen- formation js shared, that it irrigates the firm thoroughly.' "30
I:ers on each occasion. Organizarional suppleness nm'.or goes If it is ttue that the "bos.s" has always been compated to the
hand in hand with authority and decision. "brain/' ,'.ore can see clearly that the neuronal manager no
We know, moreover, thar the zones of the btain serve longer has the same style of government ot command as
many functions ar once and can successively form part of the cerebtal C.E.O. Ideally, the boss can refrain-at least in
is a synthesis of all the plastic processes at work in the brai n; historical permanence of rhe subject (autobiographical self,
this permits us ro hold together and unit}, the carrography "invariant aspeers of an individual's biography")."
of netvwrks already mentioned. "The fact that plasticity One can see that the notion of biological precedence
does occur in so many brain systems," we read in Synaptic leads di recdy to that of the continuity between the neuronal
Seij; "raises ... interesting questions. How does a person and the mental. Indeed, core consciousness and autobio-
with a coherent personality-a fairly stable Set of thoughts, graphical consciousness ate formed from, and emerge from,
emotions, and motivations--ever emerge? W'hy don] [ me the proro-self in a progressive manner, without rupture or
systems learn different things and pull our thoughts, emo- leap. How is this continuity possible? Here is the most in-
dons. and morivations in different di reccions? \Vhat makes teresting and most subrle po int of the analysis: through
them work together, rather man as an unruly mob?'" It is modification of the primitive or primordial representational
the "self," incomesrablr, that allows for this grouping and function that is the work of the proto-self. Indeed, 0 ne
linking. must suppose that the "prow-self" presents itself as "a co-
The "proro-self," or "primordial selC' explains Da- herent collection of neural patterns which represent the
masio, covers the ensemble of brain devjces which -con tin- state of the organism, moment by momen(~ a( multjple lev-
uouslr and nonconsciomly maintain the body within the els of the brain."lL Thus there actually is, contrary ro Berg-
narrow range and relative stab il ity required for survival. son's claim, a self-representation of me brain, an amo-
These devices- continually represent, nonconsciously, the representation of cerebral srruCfure that coincides with the
state of the li,'ing body, along irs many dimensions.'" The auro-representation of rhe organism. This internal power of
Condus ion _ 79
78
example of stem cells above. What is fascinating abour stem and mind that .is conflictual and conrradictory in its es
cell, is that they bring together the origin, as their name sence. Rereading his Philosophy ofNature could teach us
indica,es, and the future, rhe capaciry for self re-form. Is much about the rransirion from the biological to the spiri-
th is nor rhe best possible definition of plasticiry: the relation tual, about the way rhe mi nd is real! y aI ready a "self
that an individual emenains with what, on the one hand, [Setbst]," a "spirit-nature" at whose core "differences are
atraches him originally ro himself, ro his proper form, and one and all physical and psychical.'"
with what, on the other hand, allows him ro launch himself Of course, although Hegel could not yet express himself
into the void of all idemity, ro abandon all rigid and fixed in the idiom of the ~'neuronal" and me '~menml/' his con-
determination? stant preoccupation was the transformation of rhe mind's
We have examined the quesrion of the converribility of natural existence (the brain, which he srill calls the "natural
neuronal panerns into mental images and, in consequence,
soul") imo its historical' and speculari"e being. Bur this
of the genesis of the self starring from the "proro-self." \Xle
rransformarion is the dialectic itself. If there can be a tran,i-
have shown tha' th is genesis supposes that one could ac-
rion from nature to thought, this is because the narure of
count 'imultaneously for the transition from one level of
rho ughr co ntradicts itself. Thus the transition from a purely
organization [0 another, for the transition from one regime
biological emity to a mental emity takes place in the srrug-
of organ izatlon lO ano Eher and, finally, fo r the transition
l
82 CODdw LOll 83
5. MRI ,und, for "magnetic resonance imaging," and PET twO associated terms: [he noun p/mtiquagt'!, meaning the act or
for "positron emission tomography." On this topic, see; Amww event of blowing something up using plastic explos.ives, and the
dbiJ",ire et '" phi/s,ophie du "ivan< 3, "Le cer"eau et Jes images" corresponding verh plJstiqun-.-Twu.]
(Paris: Instimt d'Mitinn Sanoli-SyntheJabo, 2000), 14, This desctiption is a simp~fied summary of the remark-
6. lvlo\.OI stands for "Monoamine oxidase inhibitor," and ably precise description given by Marc Jeannerod in hi, U e"veau
SSRI for "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor": Proza.c, Paxil, intim< (Park Odile Jacob, 1(02), 47. The axon, which is much
Lu'lox, Celexa, etc. longer than the dendrjtes, is: in a cenain sense the telegraphic line
7. Boris Cyrulnik uses this notion prominently in his \IImrk that trans:mits messages from one neuron to anothe.r~ or to the
(,ee the last chapter of thi, oonk). mus.cle or gland that it serves:. The axon and the membrane that
8. Some examples t>ken from ,he hundred, of pages devoted surrounds it form the nervous fiber. Ead~ neuron produces: de<:
to plasticity on the Internet confirm this:: "Plas6cite nervfuse" [fical signals that are propagaEed along me axon. The transmis
{Vio'Vio'W. cha. rouen.fr); Jmotut Pasteur, Cours de developpement ef
sion of the s.ignals of one neuron co another across tbe synapse is
plasticit. du ')~teme nerveux (www.pasteur.fr); Equipe CNRS, generally realized by a chemical substance, the neuromediator.
"Integration et plastidte synaptique dans Ie cortex visud" 15. Jeannerod, Lt'! (t!roe/1U intime~ 63.
(unic.cnrs-gif.fr}; "Atelier sur la plasticite cerebrale e[ mod.elisa 16. Ibid, 66.
17. Changeux, Neuronal Man, 247.
cion mathemaEique" (crm-moflueal.ca); uDeveloppemem et plas-
] 8. Protos.e/fand neuronal self are terms- used by the nemoJo
[khe du systeme nerveux" (sign7.jussieu.f.r}; "Developpement er
gist Antonio Damasio; we v.11l rerum 00 these terms in the last
pJasticire du SNC," licence de sciences: cognhives, Uruversire Aix
chapter.
Marseille (sciences:-oognirives::org); "PIasricite et regulation de la
19. Lac Bolun,ki and Eve Chiapelio, Th. New Spiri' if Capi-
neurogenese dans Ie cerveau" (lncf.cnrs-mrs.fr); "Groupe plastic-
tafiJm, tran,. Gregory Elliot (london: Verso, 2005), 149.
ite post-Iesionnelle," Faculte des sciences et des techniques Saint-
20. Daniel Dennen, Consciousness Explaint'!d (Boston: Linle,
Jerome, Mar>eille (irme.Otg).
Brown, 199 I).
9. This i, panicuiarIy '0 in the magazine fA &ekrch<. 21. [,o\.Ithough English and French both h.ve the word", fold
10. Changeux, Neuronal Man, 247. (pun) ill transiti.....e and jntransitive senses~ English lacks the neat
11. Cybernetics comes from the Greek kubentdn, to govern. pair prmdr< 1< pli I tknnn- k pli. The French prendre k pli, here
Cybernetics is the science cons[itmed by the group of theories literally nan,Iated as "take me fold," also appears in the phrase
about control, regulation, and communication in li'l,ring things prendre un mduvais pii, meaning to develop a bad habit. Donner
and machines. k pli, here Iiterall,- namlated as "give the fold," also means to put
12. See the entry "Plasticity in the Nervous SYSlcm/' in The a crease in something.-Trans.]
Oxftrd 0>mponion to fh< Mind, ed. Richard L. Gregory (Oxford: 22. In the strong sense of the word gtniw: in.. . ention, form
Oxford University Pre", 1987), 623. &Ymg.
13. [Malabou here refers to a set of related word, not available 23. A gastropod mollusk also called a "sea slug."
in English, which I have therefore lerr in French in the main text. 24. [The reference is to MaI.bou', The Future ofHegeL PIJs-
As we use in English the French form plJstiqu< to signify plastic ,icity, Temporality, Dial"tU:, tran" Lisbeth During (New York:
e.plo,i,e material, the French use the English form plJstic (which Routledge, 2004), in which she develops the concept of plasticity
otherwise does not occur in French). French also has (ar least) fOlmd in Hegel', Phenomenology ofSpirit.-Tuns.]