How to refocus the brain?

Two years ago Viktor Yushchenko signed the decree on the establishment of Brain Institute of Ukraine. Andrii Sliusarchuk — famous neurosurgeon, professor, and Doctor of Medicine had to be assigned the head of the Institute. Sliusarchuk is well-known in Ukraine and throughout the world thanks to his successful operations on brain, his records of memorizing numbers (in 2010 he proved the possibility to recall any digit of (Pi) after the coma within 30 million digits), and the victory in the tournament with the chess engine Rybka in May 2011. During his studies professor Sliusarchuk read and memorized 2,600 books on history and theory of chess (all in all he knows by heart over 20,000 books). Sliusarchuk calls himself “one of the few civilization representatives, who was given a chance to get this high” because in practice he showed impressive result — the ability to actually use large memory capacities.

All the achievements, including public appearances with tricks like, for example, hypnotizing a pig, very much liked by modern television, are only parts of the whole, on which Sliusarchuk has been working for nearly 20 years now. His work focused on studying and decoding the phenomena of human memory and person’s life scenario — more exactly, on figuring out the mechanism of person’s dependence on his prior experience. It is all about various kinds of dependences, including dependence on chemical agents. This is a secret subject. Sliusarchuk began working on it back in Moscow, where, by the way, he graduated from high school at the age of 12 and from medical university — at the age of 17. However, at the present time many questions are asked concerning his work because it has been classified. “Almost every week the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports receives inquiry letters from different citizens concerned with the question whether Sliusarchuk is, in fact, a professor and has real scientific degrees,” Ihor Nekrasov, director of Personnel and Management Department of the Ministry told The Day. “Dr. Sliusarchuk has classified research subject, which should not be open to public. Things are different these days, it is extremely rare when something is classified. We provide documentary confirmation that Mr. Sliusarchuk is, indeed, the one he says he is.” Recently prominent public figures have sent a petition to the president of Ukraine in defense of Sliusarchuk, stating the need to finance the establishment of the Brain Institute, which remains only on paper to this day. Unfortunately, it had no effect. The Day spoke with Sliusarchuk, M.D. and professor about the prospects of the Brain Institute — kind of institute that operates in Russia, all European countries, the US, India, and Iran.

Dr. Sliusarchuk, in your opinion, why hasn’t the Brain Institute launched its work in Ukraine yet and when might this happen?

“What concerns the establishment of the Brain Institute, the decree on that was signed long ago and it even seemed that the idea was about to find its realization, but there were too many obstacles, and this process caused unfriendly reactions of our luminaries in neuroscience, especially to my research. I was accused of not having a diploma, scientific degrees, not being a professional and being an absolute nothing. For a few years I’ve been clearing my name and now I can prove that I am capable of implementing this project in Ukraine. That is why the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports provides assistance now, so that the Institute might be established. Negotiations are now being held with rectors, different laboratories. We try to organize a large laboratory at the Taras Shevchenko National University and open a specialized department. It is difficult, because there has been no other experience in creating this kind of model. It won’t be dry-theory department. I have a real need for an experimental lab, where I would be able to carry those projects out both in theory and practice. By the way, we applied for the state award for one of the elements of our research work.”

Speaking of addiction, what kinds of addictions would you like to work with — drugs, alcohol, or gambling…

“…unhappy love. People sometimes become dependant on that too. There are times when we can solve the problem on our own. But there are also situations, when a person falls so deep in love, this scenario sticks in his consciousness and his memory plays a mean game with him so that this person can no longer think of marrying someone else or even just live normally without that beloved one.”

Psychotherapy deals with those kinds of problems, right? One can replay the traumatic situation, live through it again, and create a new scenario for himself.

“That’s right, but only to some extent. You retrain one’s brain, and in many cases it works, but in most cases it doesn’t. Here is a cell phone. It has its own architecture, it has various schemes and technologies. First of all, it physics, specific laws, which mankind has used to their benefit. I turn on the music on the phone and the architecture begins to ‘play.’ Thus, people’s psychic reactions is as if that music, but by influencing music we can not change the architecture of the phone. Therefore, by just speaking to you I can not change gene neuron-mediator system that is already hardwired in your brain. I cannot change it until I can understand in what ways the brain runs it, using what gene combinations, what substances participate in this process, and what peptides are involved. Only by influencing those peptides, their number, and specific weight, and also influencing the work of gene system we can understand and manage this process. Psychotherapy emerged only because the humankind was way too far from understanding of how the brain works and there was a need to get help in some ways. If we would dig deeper, we can say that brain learns using the second signal system — words, gestures, facial expressions, and perhaps that is where a certain resource for psychotherapy lays — to replay and to refocus.

“But we here speak about the situations when life plays radical extremes with us, we speak about pathologies, when the brain has worked in a certain way, remembered the partner, and froze in that state so that that image became the figure and the rest became the background. We have to understand how the brain creates that figure — what are the things we react to. In this case, a patient who is stuck and got in a certain horrible situation, with help of our method can get rid of that painful problem by taking a pill (‘pill’ is used as a metaphor).

“Another example, the so-called extreme behavioral models of crime. Let’s take the case of Anatolii Onopriienko, who is now in prison. After all, someone has created him. You and I know that he did not come out like that on his own, he is a result of long lasting ‘work’ of many idiots in his life — all those who mocked and betrayed him. It is also a horrible experience.

“I am the kind of scientist who, despite the complexity of the problem, is studying very closely the holy of holies — work of the brain. However, I do it not from the viewpoint of psychic component, but from the perspective of gene system functioning, work of neuropeptide, neuromediator systems, and at the level of neuron cells. The main theme is that the brain is a system and an organ that helps us to adjust to the environment. Thus, I ask myself a question: what are the ways in which the brain adjusts, what mechanisms are triggered? Addictions are also a form in which our brain has learned. After studying the mechanisms of how we learn when influenced by different things, we will discover a few interesting positions. First of all, we will be able to manage the process well. After all, when we know something about the brain — mankind has discovered a number of things by now, it all remains at the intuition level and is not studying thoroughly.”

It has been proved that 95 percent of all that people do they do it automatically, using prior experience and stereotypes. Do you believe that it is possible to change this and open unlimited possibilities for people?

“We present the brain’s acquired experiences and, I believe, that it is not only possible to get rid of those experiences but also to rewrite them. Let’s say, a person got a ‘pill’ (‘pill’ is a metaphor) and his brain scheme refocused — figures faded away.”

Don’t you think that this would be too easy? What about the person’s moral responsibility for what he’s done? The criminal should understand something, learn a lesson. In case with Onopriienko, maybe he should change his ways.

“If we want a person to realize that we need to put those settings into him. All of us are products of the environment we grew in and it wasn’t our choice. Sometimes, decisions were made for us and we now have to replay the scenario. What I want to do is to find out in what ways it is done. When we will finish our research and will prove it right, we will be able to make the process manageable and will make it work for humans benefit. Are there any hidden terrible metamorphoses there? Of course, yes. No wonder this research was closed down (in Russia). Why? It’s all because we managed to obtain results. But the results turned out to be ambiguous: we came to the situation when with the help of certain models (I won’t describe them, don’t have a right to do so) a drug addict was almost freed from his addiction. However, there were some side effects too — the person forgot who he was. In Moscow five institutes were involved in that research. It is became obvious that the results of the research could be used not only for people’s benefit and not only in medicine, but also in politics. They can be used to destroy personality. Give a ‘pill’ to a person and his memory is gone. The person is gone.”

Did you consider working with private investors if the state does not need this kind of research?

“Even if I will bring private investors to finance the project, who will let me do that? It is a state project. There are many people who would be interested in financing this research, but I am not a criminal. Besides, the information has to be preserved and protected. It has different aspects, both positive and negative. The Brain Institute has a serious position and only the statehood-oriented policy will make this science possible in the country. If there is no state — there will be no science.”