So I think I mentioned once earlier that I was taking my last university course (thank God!) and that clever me, decided not to take an easy course as my last...but a stressful difficult course on the brain. Cognitive neuroscience. Yep, just writing that word makes me puke. It's supposed to be a Psyc course, but so far it's been all science. I have my midterm on thursday (and I may have cried today b/c I was so stressed out about it...:) but studying my notes like crazy has actually not been that bad.
Besides having to figure out what words like, Rhombencephalon mean (let alone remember it!) it has been interesting to learn in detail about the most complex feature in the world: the human brain. It blows my mind (ironically) to think of all the millions (probably more like trillions) of neurons, connections and transactions that our brain processes every second. Also how one simple lesion somewhere in the brain can change your life more dramatically than you could ever imagine(check out the classic case of HM, for example). It's incredible! The Brain is such a fragile thing, but yet it's totally durable, and can (and has) sustained amazing tramas and come out normal.
Another wonder to me is how it grows from an infant...that process is nuts too. The brain quadruples in size by the time you become an adult. As an infant though, it has 150% of what an adult has in certain aspects (neurons/dendrites/etc.) and over years the brain prunes itself to become more efficient, all the time growing in size. It's so cool. Okay maybe I am just proving that I am a bit of a science nerd...well, at least I married the right guy!! Ha!!
Later Published by Mindy on Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 10:22 PM.
4 Comments
Besides having to figure out what words like, Rhombencephalon mean (let alone remember it!) it has been interesting to learn in detail about the most complex feature in the world: the human brain. It blows my mind (ironically) to think of all the millions (probably more like trillions) of neurons, connections and transactions that our brain processes every second. Also how one simple lesion somewhere in the brain can change your life more dramatically than you could ever imagine(check out the classic case of HM, for example). It's incredible! The Brain is such a fragile thing, but yet it's totally durable, and can (and has) sustained amazing tramas and come out normal.
Another wonder to me is how it grows from an infant...that process is nuts too. The brain quadruples in size by the time you become an adult. As an infant though, it has 150% of what an adult has in certain aspects (neurons/dendrites/etc.) and over years the brain prunes itself to become more efficient, all the time growing in size. It's so cool. Okay maybe I am just proving that I am a bit of a science nerd...well, at least I married the right guy!! Ha!!
Later Published by Mindy on Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 10:22 PM.
4 Comments
Cool Mindy, I learned some stuff about the brain. I'm not so sure about the brain becoming more efficient and growing in size. My dad's head is huge and he's not too efficient with things. Ha ha.
Peace.
Have you seen the movie "Memento"? You should if you haven't; not that its an awesome movie, but you might find it interesting (and it is pretty good, just not amazing).
Do they teach you how to prune the brain manually? Because if they do, I would like to see that. Let me know when hand out your complimentary neuro-pruner at the end of the course!
Andrew, that's funny you should mention the movie, momentum (or whatever it's called) Cause that's exactly what my prof suggested we watch!!
Speaking of prunes, my mom and my aunt went to this teacher seminar and learned that prunes are good for the brain. I can't remember exactly what for though...