This Year's Paltry Neuroscience Progress Is What We Would Expect If Brains Don't Make Minds

The amount of progress that neuroscientists make each year should  very much depend on whether the dogmas of neuroscientists are true. Given our current very high degree of technology we would expect two possible results:

• If brains do store memories, and brains do make minds, we would expect that given all of our wonderful technology and high funding for neuroscience research, that each year would produce wonderful progress in neuroscience, with there occurring various dramatic events such as the discovery of a memory storage code in brains or the reading of memories from the brains of dead men or neuroscientist research clarifying how a brain is able to instantly retrieve a memory. 
• If brains do not store memories, and brains do not make minds, we would expect that despite all of our wonderful technology each year would produce little neuroscience progress, and that most of the news reports sounding like big progress in neuroscience would be unfounded reports based on groundless hype and illusion. 

A recent article in Scientific American unintentionally suggests that the second of these situations is what is actually occurring. It is an article entitled "This Year’s Most Thought-Provoking Brain Discoveries." After noting the lack of progress in understanding how a brain could produce consciousness,  and noting that such an understanding "may not be forthcoming for decades, if ever," the article gives a list of what the author judges to be the top four advances in neuroscience reported in Scientific American in 2022. 

As Discovery #1 the article lists the groundless claim that "your brain has a thumbs up-thumbs down switch." We have a credulous discussion of some poorly-designed experimental research guilty of the Questionable Research Practices so very prevalent these days in experimental neuroscience. We are told that this year someone "co-authored a Nature paper that reported on a kind of molecular switch in rodents that flags an experience as either good or bad." We get a reference to a Scientific American article with the unfounded title "Newfound Brain Switch Labels Experiences as Good or Bad."  In that paper we have a reference to the study "Neurotensin orchestrates valence assignment in the amygdala." It's yet another appalling example of the ridiculously bad experimental practices being followed these days in neuroscience. 

The study group sizes used were too small for any convincing result. In Figure 1 of the paper we read of study group sizes of 18, 17, 11, 9, 15, 13, 14, 12, 8, 9, 8 and 9.  In Figure 2 we read of study group sizes of 17, 19, 14, 14, 7, 8, 7 and 8. In Figure 3 we read of study group sizes of only 13, 12, 13, 12, 5 and 5. In Figure 5 we read of study group sizes of only 12 and 14. Fifteen subjects per study group is the absolute minimum for any type of slightly impressive result in a study such as this, with a much larger study group size (possibly many times larger) being necessary for many types of experimental studies. As a good general rule of thumb, any correlation-seeking experimental study using fewer than 15 subjects in any of its study groups should be regarded as probably mere junk science. 

The scientists would have discovered that the study group sizes used were way too small to produce a reliable result, if they had acted like good scientists and had done what is called a sample size calculation. That's a calculation in which you determine how many subjects you need to use to get a statistically robust result. Alas, in the paper the scientists confess that no such calculation was done. They say "sample sizes were not predetermined and based on similar studies in the literature."  This is what happens most of the times these days in the massively dysfunctional swamp that is experimental neuroscience. Most experimental neuroscientists are using way-too-small sample sizes (the same as study group sizes), and feebly trying to justify the study group sizes they used by saying that they were "based on similar studies in the literature." But when extremely bad habits are prevalent in a research community, you do not justify your bad behavior by noting that you acted as your fellow experimental neuroscientists acted. That is like some student spending only five minutes on his homework and saying, "I spent an amount of time on my homework similar to what my friends spent." 

The study hinged upon claims of "freezing behavior" in rodents, making 27 uses of the word "freezing." This is a senseless practice widespread in experimental neuroscience. In countless papers mere subjectively judged non-movement of a rodent is called "freezing behavior," and is claimed as evidence of fear. The non-movement of a rodent is not good evidence for fear. The only reliable way to measure fear in a rodent is to measure heart rate, which very sharply spikes when a rodent is afraid.  Today's neuroscientists avoid making reliable measurements of fear in rodents by heart rate measurements, and instead cling to a senseless habit in their research community of trying to judge fear by making subjective judgments about whether a rodent stopped moving.  We may wonder whether the reason for this absurd practice is that it allows neuroscientists to claim seeing fear in an animal whenever they want to see it, which makes it easier for them to report getting positive results.   

The Scientific American article claim that "a brain switch labels experiences as good or bad" does not even match any claim made by the scientific paper. It's just a piece of science journalist sensationalist fluff, and the paper that it is based on did not follow good research practices, and provides no robust evidence for anything of the sort. So the first item on Scientific American's "best neuroscience of the year" list does not hold up to scrutiny. 

Discovery #2 in Scientific American's article "This Year’s Most Thought-Provoking Brain Discoveries" is no discovery about the brain. The discovery is listed as this: "Investigators found that innate expressions grounded in biology do not exist—and instead are highly variable."  That isn't a brain discovery. 

Discovery #3 in Scientific American's article "This Year’s Most Thought-Provoking Brain Discoveries" is also no discovery about the brain. The discovery is listed as this: 

"Many kids are psychological mixes, mosaics, studies showed this past year. They display sensitivity to some but not all influences around them, depending on a particular situation."

That's not a brain discovery, and not even a discovery at all, because people have known such a thing for centuries. 

Discovery #4 in Scientific American's article "This Year’s Most Thought-Provoking Brain Discoveries" is also no discovery about the brain. The discovery is described like this:

"Kids at five Virginia high schools took courses, and their performance was matched against another group that received lessons without the spatial-learning component. The results of the research, published in August, showed that students in the spatial learning group improved not only spatial skills but also verbal abilities—figuring out a problem using words."

Yes, children continually improve their vocabulary as they take courses in schools. That has been known for centuries.  That isn't a discovery about the brain. 

What we have in Scientific American's roundup of the "most thought-provoking brain discoveries" of 2022 is just the kind of meager, paltry, unimpressive results we might expect if your brain does not produce your mind, and your brain does not store your memories. Similarly, if there was some well-funded society consisting of researchers believing that the moon causes you to fall in love, we might expect that this year's best research results from such a society would be some paltry, meager, unimpressive results. Erroneous assumptions tend to yield unimpressive research results, although hype, exaggeration, distortion, and misleading press accounts may tend to cover up the shortfall. If your brain does not make your mind and does not store your memories, we would expect neuroscientists to be producing nothing very exciting in their research (although hype and exaggeration might make you think otherwise). So it's no surprise that a story today in The Guardian is entitled "The 10 biggest science stories of 2022 – chosen by scientists," and that not one of the stories involves neuroscience research.