The neuropsychology of zombies
Braaaains! Including the mediation of subcortical fear by the anterior cingulate gyrus! On Monday night, Science on the Screen at the Coolidge Corner Theatre will sponsor a showing of the classic zombie film "Night of the Living Dead," preceded by a talk by Dr. Steven Schlozman -- zombie enthusiast and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
George Romero, the man behind "Night of the Living Dead," may not be a neuroscientist, but he and the zombie-auteurs who followed him have an uncanny understanding of the brain works, according to Schlozman. The first part is fairly intuitive. Zombies are humans whose own brains have regressed to the level of a crocodile's, the filters between primal urges and action entirely erased. (See flesh, eat flesh.) In contrast, the protagonists in zombie films, the survivors, retain the brain functions that tamp down primal reactions before passing them on to the higher cortical regions. They think before they act -- at first.
And that's the crux of one of Schlozman's arguments: The story changes as the situation grows grimmer. Here, the professor draws on "mirror neuron" theory, which holds that humans are hard-wired to reflect the psychological states of the people around them. (Show a test subject a short film of a face displaying disgust, or pleasure, and regions of the brain associated with those feelings activate in the subject.)
Unable to relate to the hordes of undead, the survivors in zombie films enter a spiral of despair, feeding off the panic and hopelessness of the uninfected people around them. At the bottom of the spiral comes a crucial psychological moment, Schlozman tells Brainiac, one that you'll find in most zombie flicks:
The protagonists rush out of whatever symbolic structure they happen to be walled up in (churches, malls, etc) and rather than letting the Zombies simply devour them, they try to kill as many Zombies as they can even though they know it's useless! They fully expect to die.
Since not even Romero has a bleak enough vision to annihilate all of his characters*, the psychological bottoming-out is followed by a shameful reawakening.
Schlozman will present the fully-fleshed-out version of his zombie spiel at 7 p.m., at the independent Brookline theater.
* A commenter disputes this point. I defer to him -- the generalization about Romero was mine, not Schlozman's. Still, Schlozman sees this as a standard trope in the genre. (The comment in question contains a spoiler, so beware.)
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A great article for Easter week. Thanks!
Zombies! Man, they creep me out!
Beware Zombie Jesus
Can I bring my Zombie survival kit with me , of course I can leave the chainsaw and guns at home, but bring my protective forearm and body gear
"Since not even Romero has a bleak enough vision to annihilate all of his characters"
Not so. Night of the Living Dead ends with every single main character dead or undead.
I'm there!
Why don't Zombies eat each other?
Wouldn't make a great film I suppose :-)
We at the Zombie Anti Defamation League dispute the hypothesis stated above. We will be sending members of the Zombie Mission to the screening, and early indications are that many, many members intend to show up. Vitalist hate speech is an artifact of the past, and through education we hope to bring our message of understanding to the public at large.
Remember, inside every living person is a dead one waiting to get out.
I submit that if you do not yet know how Night of the Living Dead ends, then you've more than had your chance to find out in the 41 years since its release, and that the comment indicating the fate of the non-zombies in the film has been unfairly referred to as a "spoiler".
Zombies give me the hibbigibbies!
Great article!
You might want to check with Richard Cheney and the extreme right wing of the Republican party over the past eight years to verify the entire neuropsychological spectrum of activity of zombies and their ilk. These undead deserve credit for placing a not-fully-matured zombie in the office of President of the US whose own neurotransmitters were of course not close to being functional. Thank badness Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are still around to provide "Days of the Living Dead" for all of us true zombie fans.
Brains. Brains brains brains, brains brains brains brains. Brains brains!
Merle Schirmer- must everything be viewed through the prism of politics? What a joyless sack you must be. I don't even pity you.
A theory of autism contends that the mirror neurons of people on the autistic spectrum are disrupted, and this leads to the difficulties that autistic people have relating to others and showing expression themselves. Even blind people have more facial expressions than autistic, leading me to believe that expressions are hard-wired. I am on the spectrum, and even when I really want to show expression, I cannot properly. However, the zombie theory is discredited because autistic people live in a state of wanting to communicate despite limited flawed neurons. .
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
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