I am a neuro-endocrinologist. I’ve worked on research involving the effects of stress, aging, and gender/sex on learning and memory. I have also worked on the research involving the effects of gender/sex on drug addiction to drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine.

I have been teaching at the college level for several years. My courses include basic pharmacology, sensation and perception, psychology of human sexuality, and biology.

My hopes are to write a blog which provides information on a variety of topics which focus on the psychological and physiological aspects of women’s and children’s health. My belief is that women, and more directly mothers, are the epicenter of their families. We are strong, capable, and intelligent. We are constantly juggling a multitude of roles based on the constant pressures and demands placed upon us. We are the CEO’s, the teachers, the doctors, care takers, social secretaries, and prime ministers of our families. I have dedicated my career to investigating and teaching how our health is affected by our beliefs, environments, and behaviors. My aim is to provide quality information and create dialogue on these topics.

I gave a lecture the other day on attention and scene perception for my class on sensory information. It’s a fun-enough class but this week’s lecture grabbed me. I realized the importance of what I was saying right in the middle of my class.

My lecture was on the effects of attention in visual processing. I talked about a host of experiments that had been run to test the effects of attention on detecting visual stimuli or visual searches. It is so eloquently put in the moon walking bear video – definitely one of my favorites. my class really enjoyed.

I also talked about some fMRIs studies that showed particular brain activation when looking at particular stimuli. For example, the fusiform face area in the cortex responds to best to faces. The parahippocampal area is an area in the brain that responds strongest in response to images of places. In one study by O’Craven and Kanwisher (2000), subjects were shown an image of a face superimposed over an image of a house. My students guessed that both areas of the brain would fire strongly simultaneously. Interestingly, that’s not what happened. The face area became more active when the subject was attending the face and the spatial area became more active when attending the place (Wolfe et al., 2009). And so in a nut shell, what we give our attention to determine what information we acutely process and ultimately what we experience. What a beautiful lesson.

In his Book of Secrets, Deepak Chopra writes about how the secrets of life are wrapped up in our cells. They feed; they share; they grow; and they let go. I didn’t get the full meaning of this until recently.

Neurons (nerve cells in the brain) respond in the 3 ways to attention.

1. Attention can enhance the responding of a particular neuron- which means that the neuron will actually have a bigger and better response. We see this in our actions. When we pay attention to what we are doing, we perform better and create bigger than we ever thought. Apparently, this is no mere fluke. The same process is occurring internally at the cellular level.

2. Attention can cause a sharper tuning in a neural response- paying closer attention to stimuli causes our neurons to fire in a much more accurate and precise way. We also see this in our behavioral output. By paying attention to what we are doing, we are able to perform more delicate tasks; we are able to detect smaller and more subtle changes in our environment and respond accurately.

It happens with the positive and the negative. My best-friend tells calls me on this all of the time. He says that when I expect someone to behave poorly, I look for the slightest  indication that they are meeting my expectations. The best example is with my mother in law. I will notice every small gesture, intonation, and wrinkle of her forehead to determine what opinions she’s forming about my cooking, housekeeping, or general existence. I'm like deer in the wild- keeping eyes open for even the slightest sign of a danger.

3. Attention can alter the preference of a neuron. This is my favorite. “A cell that was initially tuned to vertical lines might come to respond better to a different orientation under the influence of attention” (Wolfe et al., 2009). If enough attention is paid to a particular stimulus then the surrounding cellular receptive fields might be called in as reinforcements- even if they wouldn’t normally respond to that type of cue previously. It’s as if the body pulls together as much of its resources as it can to get the job done. Attention can change the preference and job of a neuron.

Can attention do the same for us? Does what we focus on change us and change our capabilities and what we can do? I think it does. If it changes us on the most basic cellular level- then these changes can add up and change us on a more holistic scale. Attention can change us and make us more capable. By giving things our attention, we can live up to our fullest potential. We can become who we dream of being.

I think this is  a beautiful lesson. What are you focusing on in your relationships? What are you seeing in others? Is your attention determining and dictating how you experience that person? Are you tuning your neurons to miss out on other facets of that person? Did your husband really change or did your attention shift to his other attributes?

Are you teaching your children the power of their attention? This knowledge gives us so much power over our perception and our experience.