The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

“Mr. Dobbs—Jonathan—wants to file a lawsuit against the people whose car collided with his. This fault was clearly the other party’s, so their insurance company is going to compensate Jonathan financially for the damage to his car. But the legal system is very conservative here in England. The physicians here have found him to be physically normal—his MRI is normal and there are no neurological symptoms or other injuries anywhere in his body. So the insurance company will only pay for the car damage, not for any health-related issues.”

“Well.”

“The problem, Dr. Ramachandran, is that he claims to have developed the Capgras syndrome. Even though he knows that he is looking at his wife, she often seems like a stranger, a new person. This is extremely troubling to him, and he wants to sue the other party for a million dollars for having caused a permanent neuropsychiatric disturbance.”

“Pray continue.”

“Soon after the accident someone found your book Phantoms in the Brain lying on my client’s coffee table. He admitted to reading it, which is when he realized he might have the Capgras syndrome. But this bit of self-diagnosis didn’t help him in any way. The symptoms remained just the same. So he and I want to sue the other party for a million dollars for having produced this permanent neurological symptom. He fears he may even end up divorcing his wife.

“The trouble is, Dr. Ramachandran, the other attorney is claiming that my client has simply fabricated the whole thing after reading your book. Because if you think about it, it’s very easy to fake the Capgras syndrome. Mr. Dobbs and I would like to fly you out to London so you can administer the GSR test and prove to the court that he does indeed have the Capgras syndrome, that he isn’t malingering. I understand you cannot fake this test.”

The attorney had done his homework. But I had no intention of flying to London just to administer this test.

“Mr. Watson, what’s the problem? If Mr. Dobbs finds that his wife looks like a new woman every time he sees her, he should find her perpetually attractive. This is a good thing—not bad at all. We should all be so lucky!” My only excuse for this tasteless joke is that I was still only barely awake.

There was a long pause at the other end and a click as he hung up on me. I never heard from him again. My sense of humor is not always well received.

Even though my remark may have sounded frivolous, it wasn’t entirely off the mark. There’s a well-known psychological phenomenon called the Coolidge effect, named after President Calvin Coolidge. It’s based on a little-known experiment performed by rat psychologists decades ago. Start with a sex-deprived male rat in a cage. Put a female rat in the cage. The male mounts the female, consummating the relationship several times until he collapses from sheer sexual exhaustion. Or so it would seem. The fun begins if you now introduce a new female into the cage. He gets going again and performs several times until he is once again thoroughly exhausted. Now introduce a third new female rat, and our apparently exhausted male rat starts all over again. This voyeuristic experiment is a striking demonstration of the potent effect of novelty on sexual attraction and performance. I have often wondered whether the effect is also true for female rats courting males, but to my knowledge that hasn’t been tried—probably because for many years most psychologists were men.

The story is told that President Coolidge and his wife were on a state visit to Oklahoma, and they were invited to a chicken coop—apparently one of their major tourist attractions. The president had to first give a speech, but since Mrs. Coolidge had already heard the speech many times she decided to go to the coop an hour earlier. She was being shown around by the farmer. She was surprised to see that the coop had dozens of hens but only one majestic rooster. When she asked the guide about this, he replied, “Well, he is a fine rooster. He goes on and on all night and day servicing the hens.”

“All night?” said Mrs. Coolidge. “Will you do me a big favor? When the president gets here, tell him in exactly the same words—what you just told me.”

An hour later when the president showed up, the farmer repeated the story.

The president asked, “Tell me something: Does the rooster go on all night with the same hen or different hens?”

“Why, different hens of course,” replied the farmer.

“Well, do me a favor,” said the president. “Tell the First Lady what you just told me.”

This story may be apocryphal, but it does raise a fascinating question. Would a patient with Capgras syndrome never get bored with his wife? Would she remain perpetually novel and attractive? If the syndrome could somehow be evoked temporarily with transcranial magnetic stimulation…one could make a fortune.

CHAPTER 3

  Loud Colors and Hot Babes: Synesthesia