The question of whether the mind is separate to the body has been one of the deepest philosophical

questions for hundreds of years; belief in an afterlife, the soul rising to heaven is the basis
for most religious belief. Plato describes this relationship between mind and body as a the
chariot driver controlling the two sides to the mind, the earthly.... and the spiritual...,xxxx
this being one of the earliest description of the dualist approaches to the mind-body
problem. With the growth of neuroscience explaining many emotional states in terms of
neuronal firing and hormonal changes, monism, the belief that mind and body are indeed
one and the same thing has become the most popular position of our time xxxx, with
numerous theories claiming the truth that consciousness is just a mind-state and our free-
will to make things happen just our body working. All things are reducible to atoms
indeterministically giving form to tables and chairs and humans, but how does consciousness
arise in one form but not another, is the sense of self the defining moment when
consciousness gives us free will? When Phineas Gage in xxxx put a stake through his brain
and miraculously survived, but his personality changed, he went from a kind and honest
man, to a brute with violent and foul temperament. Did his true self change, from a virtuous
person, to a soul destined to hell? Did his physical change result in a change in self, his mind
being undeniably linked to his body? In this essay the different approaches to the mind body
problem will be unravelled discussing the implications of a recent research study in to
Alzheimers disease which indicates personality change does arise from the early stages of
the disease. The question of whether the mind, the soul, the self is separate from the body is
never such a painful question when addressing personality change brought about by brain
disease or damage, and with an aging population is a philosophical question not only the
philosophers have to address.
The research to be discussed is Personality Changes in Patients with beginning Alzheimer disease,
2011, Pocnet et al. The objective of this study was to investigate personality traits of patients with
Alzheimers disease compared with mentally healthy control subjects. Current personality traits of
both groups were assessed using structured interviews. Personality traits were assessed using the
(FFM), five factor model, the most common dimensional approach to personality, with 5 dimensions,
. Family members assessed current
personality and the personality 5 years ago or 5 years before the known onset of Alzheimers. Self
assessment via structured interview of current and five years ago was also carried out. The
Alzheimers group had significantly higher scores than normal control subjects on neuroticism,
especially vulnerability and significantly lower score on current extraversion, openness and
conscientiousness, with no significant difference n agreeableness. Proxy assessment of personality
change in 5 years, showed significant increases in neurotocism , dcrease in extraversion, openness
and conscientiousness, little change in agreeableness.where as the control group showed little
change in personality over the 5 year period, the control group personality show considerable
stability. Interestingly, for the control group there is little difference between the personality scores
self assessed and assessed by proxies. But for alzheimers patients there is a big difference between
the self assessment and the report by proxies; This suggests that patients with Alzheime disease
evaluate their former personality when asked to evaluate their current personality and that self-
perception in patients with Alzheimer disease does not evelve parallel to personality changes as
observed by third parties .
There are two importants findings from this research that need to be discussed from the mind-body
questions. The first is that the disease of Alzheimer that has been clearly identified in these
patients, following mri scan and other neurological tests, is resulting in personality change.
There is a pattern of personaliyty in a five year period change identified by proxy assessment
but also when comparing the patient group with the control group, currently. This disease
undeniably alters personality. The second observation from this research relevant to the
discussion is that the alzheimers patients do not perceive that they have undergone a
personality vhange. To them selves, they are still the person they once were.
The dualist a