It is sobering to consider that among all the great minds who have explored these phenomena, Walt Disney was probably the most successful at the large-scale manipulation of the environment to soothe and cheer the brain. Even the scary rides at Disneyland -- Dr. Sternberg deconstructs the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from a scientist's perspective -- are carefully designed to click the brain's switches in all the right directions.
And so a new nursing home has a Disneyesque Main Street to calm the deteriorating neurons of its residents. Then it is only a small neurologic step to Lourdes in France, home of miracle cures, where a host of environmental cues may switch suitably prepared brains to a state of rapture, releasing a flood of potent neurochemical mediators that may well relieve suffering.
(via mamr)
