Mind myth 4: Downshifts and blockages

I'm continuing my series on mind myths especially applicable to education and training. This one is a lucrative favourite of many brain based pseudosciences. They typically claim that people's brains get blocked when under stress and that only their brand of snake oil can get it unblocked again. This goes far beyond the generally accepted effects of stress triggering the fight or flight response. Consider this claim about rugby players from a pseudoscientific technique called genetic brain profiling:

"There are 32 different combinations of dominance between the left and right brain and the ear, eye, hand and foot, and each has implications for the way a stressed player will perform. Lotter assesses players and is able to predict the “blockages” they would suffer as a result.

For example, in an age-group provincial team she recently assessed, she found a tighthead prop with four blockages (“basically, he was unable to function under pressure”), while the fly-half and inside-centre were among those with three blockages (“key decision makers would lose the ability to communicate and perform under stress”)." (See article here).

Where do these ideas come from and is the any evidence to back them?

It starts with another popular myth called downshifting. This mixed metaphor is based on a car's gear system on the one hand and the triune brain model on the other.

Image from The Architect of Life


The hypothesized downshifting response is seen as a negative response to even mild stress in which the brain shifts down to "lower" brain formations where primitive survival modes predominate – and then remains stuck there. Supporters of the downshifting hypothesis then each have their own special techniques to get the brain unstuck. These may be simple motor movements to activate certain brain areas, or the drinking of water in order to "instantly oxygenate" the brain and allow it to upshift again.

The triune brain is a model of brain function developed by Paul MacLean. He suggested three basic brain formations based on evolutionary history, namely a reptilian formation (brainstem structures), early mammalian formation (midbrain/limbic) and neomammalian formation (neocortex). MacLean's triune brain model is influential, but quite controversial, see some of the issues (not really applicable to this post) in this discussion by Jaak Panksepp. I have always found the triune brain model quite useful and was saddened by the way it was diminished by being appropriated by pseudoscience hucksters. The chapter by Panksepp does provide another perspective from within neuroscience itself.

Many brain based pseudoscientific techniques, such as in the rugby example referred to earlier, extend the downshift hypothesis to include the left brain right brain myth and then propose that based on the putative pattern of brain dominance, parts of the brain switch off, or become blocked. Thirty two potential brain blockages should certainly be much more lucrative to "cure" than only a few.

Little evidence is to be found in MacLean's own work to support such simplistic interpretations of his model. His triune brain is an integrated system in which the three brain formations exchange information and the whole functions better that the sum of its parts. The reaction of the brain to stress is a well studied area (see here and here, for instance), but there is no evidence to support the idea of semi-permanent downshifting and of brain blockages that would require outside intervention to upshift or clear.

Concurring with this, in a critique of Brain Gym, neurobiologist Dr Stan Lazic writing for the British organization Sense about Science, stated that:

"... in reality the only time a neurological signal would become "jammed”,“blocked” or “switched off" is during a pathological event such as a seizure, stroke, head trauma, or perhaps due to a neurodegenerative disorder."

A further critique of the downshifting concept was provided by Prof Robert Sylwester and can be read here.