5 myths about the brain

Experts debunk myths about the features of our nervous system. Expert debunks scientific myths and introduces readers to the comments of our experts, who explain common misconceptions. We asked our authors to talk about the reasons for which were formed those or other well-established ideas about the brain.

The brain works by only 10%

It is not true. As we record brain activity, in particular activity of nerve cells, count the number of neurons we can meet when registering with a separate electrode. Knowing the sensitivity of the electrode at which distance it "hears" neurons, and knowing that the active electrode can feel neurons in a certain volume, morphological slices we can establish that a given volume of the brain is for example 1000 cells. But in this case, when the electrode is in the brain, we hear, that the active neuron is very small, just in the area of 5-10% or less.

But this understanding of the brain by mistake, because the registration of these neurons occurs in the moments when the animal or person perform some behavior engaged in some activity. If we are talking about free-rolling animals that are awake and performing some activity, it turns out that in every single activity executed participate, not all neurons, namely a percentage of the total. A person can not simultaneously drive the car, reading a book, playing the piano and skiing. Accordingly, at a time when performing a certain activity, activity logs one neuron to another point - the activity of other neurons, and so on. Thus, registration of a very small percentage involved in some form of neuronal activity does not mean that the brain is not working at 100%, but it works only 10% (in the sense of "bad" works).

Intelligence level depends on the size of the brain

It is not true. It seems that it is very simple: to measure the level of intelligence and brain size and to identify associated with one another or not. But how to measure the level of intelligence? Of course, there are standard tests such as IQ-test that can measure the level of certain mental abilities. But when we talk about intelligence in general, this is not always the ability to solve math problems or rotate some figures in space. Rather, it is the solution of everyday problems or questions, planning, communication and much more. Such capacity in standard tests, which are carried out almost always in writing is quite difficult to identify. So we can not compare the size of the brain and the overall level of intelligence, and we can only talk about the relationship with the results of certain tests. Of course, such studies have been, and indeed most of the studies found a positive correlation. Even in the best cases, the size of the brain explained from 5% to 10% of the test results for intelligence.

In addition, there is an evolutionary aspect. It is believed that during the evolution of the human brain with increased level of intelligence. But if we look at the evolutionary history of our species, we will see that this is not true. The brain of Neanderthals or Homo sapiens, who lived about 100 thousand years ago, was larger than that of modern man, that is, in the last 100 thousand years, the average brain size decreased in humans. Therefore, in the evolutionary process and can not see a direct correlation between the increase in brain size and increase the level of intellectual abilities.

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The brain is a gray substance

It is not true. When we speak of the brain as "gray matter", there is an idea of some kind of a uniform gray mass, unorganized structure, which nevertheless derive the processes associated with the solution of vital issues. Indeed, traditionally customary to speak of "gray matter" (brain areas rich in neuron bodies) and "white matter" (areas rich in myelinated axons). In fact, the structure of the brain is much more complicated.

The brain consists of a plurality of structures, each of which has its own function and thus difficult organized. In Examples include the hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, thalamus, and so on. Each structure of the brain is made up of a large number of different cells. They can be divided into neurons and glial cells. By glial cells include astrocytes, microglial cells and oligodendrocytes. Neurons may also differ by type: it may be excitatory glutamatergic neurons are GABAergic inhibitory neurons and so on. This structure as the medial septum, rich in neurons, which as its main neurotransmitter acetylcholine are; other structure - black substance - contains a large number of neurons, the main of which is a neurotransmitter dopamine. Violation of the data types of neurons observed in the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Nerve cells that constitute the brain structure is formed between a neural network. They communicate via electrical synapses and conduct signals coming from the peripheral structures. These connections are flexible - the efficiency of the electric pulses may increase (in this case we speak of potentiation) or decrease (in this case we speak of depression). The property is plasticity - a fundamental property of the nervous system, which allows it to process, store and reproduce the information. Thus, we can say that the brain is constantly changing structure. It is important to note that the nervous system - the most highly organized system of our body.

The left hemisphere of the brain responsible for rational and the right - for creativity

This is true only in part. One can not say what prevails in the hemisphere rational and creative solving of problems, because it leads to a strong simplification of ideas about how the brain. Incorrectly assume that one hemisphere is responsible for a single process, and the second - for the other, as the entire brain somehow involved in any mental process. However, there are problems in which the solution to a greater extent one hemisphere involved. For example, when solving spatial problems dominant right hemisphere, but also left an important contribution to these processes. If you need to write a summary of its content, you must first understand in which will participate and the right and left hemispheres. But the left hemisphere will be more involved in the drafting of the text.

The distribution of tasks that solve both hemispheres, is not static, it changes with age. Consider it. In adults and newborns in the perception of words is activated by the left hemisphere, the perception of intonation - right. However, in children 10-18 months, it causes activation of both hemispheres, more on the right, and the right hemisphere lesion leads to a more pronounced lag in the development of the sign within the meaning of the speech and the appearance of new words. At the age of 19 to 31 months - a different picture. Now with the defeat of the left temporal lobe appear more gross violations of vocabulary and grammar. In this case one would expect, and a violation of the understanding of speech, it would be consistent with patterns observed in adults, but it is virtually non-existent, as the understanding of the structure by means of the right hemisphere.

As for the conventional wisdom that people with better-developed left brain different rationality, and with the right - creativity, innovation, it is again very simple straightforward solution. A study of gifted pupils, winners of Mathematical high level of competition showed that there were also distinct right-handers and left-handers, and ambidexters (people with the same sleight of hand), that is, the students had several different distribution functions hemispheres. It is known that the majority of right-handed adults (not all!) Is dominated by speech and verbal thinking left brain, left-handed and ambidexterity these functions are distributed in both hemispheres, and there is a great variation in this distribution. These children have already achieved success and, hopefully, will achieve even greater. These solutions have been and will and creativity, and rationality. Interaction hemispheres - this is a general rule for all higher mental functions.

The brain works like a computer

It is not true. Very often people's ideas about the brain and consciousness associated with technical innovation, which is at the moment. When the latest advances in technology were the hours, the brain is presented as a set of gears. Then, when there was a telephone system, the brain is often represented as a switching device that connects bundles of wires. Therefore it is not surprising that the brain began to compare with the computer, because it is the computer has become a universal tool for calculations, will allow to solve many problems that require the person of remarkable intelligence.

In fact, if we look at the way modern computers are designed and constructed as the brain, we can see that the differences between them are fundamental. The computer program stored in the memory is executed using the processor, thus, memory, and computations are separated. In the brain, as this division is not actually memory and computation it aligned with each other due to the fact that memory is stored in the structure of connections between nerve cells, which perform calculations. Therefore, the computer can easily download new software and having a processor to receive a completely different functionality. In the brain, it's almost impossible to do, because this would have to change at the same time the link between the millions of neurons.

Another important difference is that the brain has a parallel architecture, all neurons can process information independently of each other, while in most modern computers compute sequentially arranged. This allows the brain very effectively perform important tasks for the organism. The architecture of modern computers unstable errors: usually, if we remove some part of the program, it will cause failure of the entire program. The brain is able to maintain its functionality when individual cells stop working. The destruction of even fairly large areas of the brain in most cases, not much impact on the performance of their core functions. This is due to the fact that the evolution of the brain was established in order to ensure survival of the organism in the unreliability of individual cells of the nervous system.