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    Your Brain: A User's Guide: 100 Things You Never Knew
    Your Brain: A User's Guide: 100 Things You Never Knew
    Your Brain: A User's Guide: 100 Things You Never Knew
    Ebook342 pages1 hour

    Your Brain: A User's Guide: 100 Things You Never Knew

    By National Geographic

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    About this ebook

    Both a practical owner's manual and a complete guide to the brain's development and function, this valuable reference explores not only the brain's physical form-its 100 billion nerve cells and near-infinite network of synapses-but the interactions that regulate every thought and action. Some highlights include:         The inner workings of our body's most complex organ         Foods for mental fitness         Mysteries revealed, such as why listening to music tunes up your brain
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNational Geographic
    Release dateJun 13, 2017
    ISBN9781426219214
    Your Brain: A User's Guide: 100 Things You Never Knew
    Author

    National Geographic

    National Geographic cartographers create award-winning maps using state-of-the-art software for cartography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The results are clear, detailed maps that make map reading fun and informative.

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    • 5/5
      It is very intresting and i like it too! I also watch brian games at night!
    • 5/5
      Quite an interesting read. 10/10 would recommend, gives you a nice overview over the most complicated thing in the universe.
    • 3/5
      The content is fascinating and easy to understand but the formatting of the book here on Scribd is atrocious! Maybe it’s ok on a big tablet but on web browser and phone it looks amateurish and some parts are unreadable. Not the best platform for this type of publication perhaps.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Your Brain - National Geographic

    6

    your brain

    and

    your mind

    The brain should need no introduction. After all, the brain is what makes you you. But it’s a paradox that the organ that lets you understand the world understands so little about itself. Now, thanks to stunning research building upon decades—no, centuries—of investigation, science is peeling away the layers of mystery to reveal how three pounds of flesh create an entire universe inside your head.

    In this corrugated mass, a staggeringly complex symphony of electrochemical reactions plays out every second of every day. Much of it does so without a conscious conductor. The brain makes the lungs expand with the inrush of air and the heart pump blood. It houses memories, processes sounds and sights, smells and tastes, and feelings ranging from the subtle to the sublime.

    Beyond the work the brain does automatically comes something far different. Out of the human brain arises consciousness and the mind—the unique ability of Homo sapiens, thinking man, to be aware of being aware.

    Credit 8

    Quick Thinking

    A fastball heads toward the plate. Do you swing? Part of your brain makes the decision, and another part explains it—and takes credit. Credit 9

    what

    happened

    Inside your brain, electrical activity associated with movement began increasing nearly a full second before your finger jerked at the word zero. Two German researchers, Hans Helmut Kornhuber and Lüder Deecke, demonstrated this gap in a series of experiments in the 1960s. They attached electroence­phalographs to the scalps of test subjects to measure brain activity as the subjects executed simple finger movements. The researchers compared the results with recordings of muscle movement detectors called electromyographs. They found a precursor spike in the brain 0.8 second before movement. They dubbed it the readiness potential.

    Kornhuber and Deecke also found a second, smaller spark of electrical activity at 0.05 second before finger movement. Unlike the broader readiness potential, it pinged through the specific motor region controlling the fingers. The two recordings together suggest a generalized activation focusing itself into a specific action.

    In the 1980s, another scientist, Benjamin Libet, conducted a similar experiment, but he added a new element: Volunteers moved a finger at will but used a clock to pinpoint the moment of conscious awareness of wanting to move. Strangely, that moment occurred significantly after the moment of readiness potential, but before sensors detected finger movement.

    Conclusion: An unconscious part of your brain wills an action before you are consciously aware of your will to direct it.

    5

    did you know…

    Masters of meditation, such as Zen practitioners, can change their brain waves.

    Multitasking

    Using electrochemical reactions, the brain can process a multitude of sensations at different levels of consciousness. Credit 10

    The brain

    the human brain and its consciousness contain many mysteries. In recent centuries, scientists have used an increasingly sophisticated variety of tools to find out what happens where—though much is left to learn.

    A quick tour begins with the brain’s protective structures. The crown of the skull is a collection of 22 bones that house the brain and protect it from harm. Inside, three membranes provide more layers of protection: the dura mater, the arachnoid, and the pia mater. Flowing between the arachnoid and pia membranes is the brain’s cerebrospinal fluid. Fluid-filled ventricles curve deep into the brain and connect to the spinal cord’s central canal. Cerebrospinal fluid cushions the brain and provides nourishment for tissues.

    Parts of the brain By evolutionary reckoning, the oldest portion of the brain is its stem, which begins as an extension of the spinal cord. The brain stem controls basic physical actions necessary for survival, such as heartbeat and respiration. It is home to many sensory and motor nerves, the latter named for their function of controlling movement in muscle tissue.

    Motor neurons also densely populate a second part of the brain, the cerebellum, at the back and bottom of the skull. The cerebellum coordinates precise, voluntary movements, such as tying a shoe or playing a violin, and also plays a role in emotion. A third component, known as the diencephalon, lies in the brain’s center. It controls the body’s rhythms of sleeping and wakefulness, regulates involuntary actions of the nervous system such as digestion, and relays sensory stimuli to other brain regions.

    6

    did you know…

    A fifth of your blood is devoted to supplying your brain.

    A Look Inside

    A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan reveals the side view of a man’s brain and its blood vessels. Credit 11

    The brain

    The cerebrum The fourth region, the cerebrum, is what most people think of when they envision the brain. It lies in two hemispheres, left and right, connected by a band of tissue called the corpus callosum. Although they look alike, the two halves perform and control very different functions. The left hemisphere has long been considered the dominant half because of its role in processing language, but the right hemisphere is gaining new attention for its role in emotions and spatial cognition, as well as the integrative function that helps bring bits of information together.

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