Read Online Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Medina
Tags: Self-Help
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begin developing. Once again, you see frenetic neural outgrowth and furious pruning back. It isn’t until parents begin thinking about college financial aid for their high schoolers that their brains begin to settle down to their adult forms (sort of). It’s like a double-humped camel. From a connectivity point of view, there is a great deal of activity in the terrible twos and then, during the terrible teens, a great deal more.
Though that might seem like cellular soldiers obeying growth commands in lockstep formation, nothing approaching military precision is observed in the messy world of brain development. And it is at this imprecise point that brain development meets Brain Rule. Even a cursory inspection of the data reveals remarkable variation in growth patterns from one person to the next. Whether examining toddlers or teenagers, different regions in different children develop at different rates. There is a remarkable degree of diversity in the specific areas that grow and prune, and with what enthusiasm they do so.
I’m reminded of this whenever I see the class pictures that captured my wife’s journey through the American elementary-school system. My wife went to school with virtually the same people for her entire K–12 experience (and actually remained friends with most of them). Though the teachers’ dated hairstyles are the subject of much laughter for us, I often focus on what the kids looked like back then. I always shake my head in disbelief.
In the first picture, the kids are all in grade one. They’re about the same age, but they don’t look it. Some kids are short. Some are tall. Some look like mature little athletes. Some look as if they just got out of diapers. The girls almost always appear older than the boys. It’s even worse in the junior-high pictures of this same class. Some of the boys look as if they haven’t developed much since third grade. Others are clearly beginning to sprout whiskers. Some of the girls, flat chested and uncurved, look a lot like boys. Some seem developed enough to make babies.
Why do I bring this up? If we had X-ray eyes capable of penetrating their little skulls, we would find that the brains of these kids are just as unevenly developed as their bodies.
the jennifer aniston neuron
We are born into this world carrying a number of preset circuits. These control basic housekeeping functions like breathing, heartbeat, your ability to know where your foot is even if you can’t see it, and so on. Researchers call this “experience independent” wiring. The brain also leaves parts of its neural construction project unfinished at birth, waiting for external experience to direct it. This “experience expectant” wiring is related to areas such as visual acuity and perhaps language acquisition. And, finally, we have “experience dependent” wiring. It may best be explained with a story about Jennifer Aniston. You might want to skip the next paragraph if you are squeamish.
Ready? A man is lying in surgery with his brain partially exposed to the air. He is conscious. The reason he is not crying out in agony is that the brain has no pain neurons. He can’t feel the needle-sharp electrodes piercing his nerve cells. The man is about to have some of his neural tissue removed—resected, in surgical parlance—because of intractable, life-threatening epilepsy. Suddenly, one of the surgeons whips out a photo of Jennifer Aniston and shows it to the patient. A neuron in the man’s head fires excitedly. The surgeon lets out a war whoop.
Sound like a grade B movie? This experiment really happened. The neuron in question responded to seven photographs of actress Jennifer Aniston, while it practically ignored the 80 other images of everything else, including famous and non-famous people. Lead scientist Quian Quiroga said, “The first time we saw a neuron firing to seven different pictures of Jennifer Aniston—and nothing else—we literally jumped out of our chairs.”
Though that might seem like cellular soldiers obeying growth commands in lockstep formation, nothing approaching military precision is observed in the messy world of brain development. And it is at this imprecise point that brain development meets Brain Rule. Even a cursory inspection of the data reveals remarkable variation in growth patterns from one person to the next. Whether examining toddlers or teenagers, different regions in different children develop at different rates. There is a remarkable degree of diversity in the specific areas that grow and prune, and with what enthusiasm they do so.
I’m reminded of this whenever I see the class pictures that captured my wife’s journey through the American elementary-school system. My wife went to school with virtually the same people for her entire K–12 experience (and actually remained friends with most of them). Though the teachers’ dated hairstyles are the subject of much laughter for us, I often focus on what the kids looked like back then. I always shake my head in disbelief.
In the first picture, the kids are all in grade one. They’re about the same age, but they don’t look it. Some kids are short. Some are tall. Some look like mature little athletes. Some look as if they just got out of diapers. The girls almost always appear older than the boys. It’s even worse in the junior-high pictures of this same class. Some of the boys look as if they haven’t developed much since third grade. Others are clearly beginning to sprout whiskers. Some of the girls, flat chested and uncurved, look a lot like boys. Some seem developed enough to make babies.
Why do I bring this up? If we had X-ray eyes capable of penetrating their little skulls, we would find that the brains of these kids are just as unevenly developed as their bodies.
the jennifer aniston neuron
We are born into this world carrying a number of preset circuits. These control basic housekeeping functions like breathing, heartbeat, your ability to know where your foot is even if you can’t see it, and so on. Researchers call this “experience independent” wiring. The brain also leaves parts of its neural construction project unfinished at birth, waiting for external experience to direct it. This “experience expectant” wiring is related to areas such as visual acuity and perhaps language acquisition. And, finally, we have “experience dependent” wiring. It may best be explained with a story about Jennifer Aniston. You might want to skip the next paragraph if you are squeamish.
Ready? A man is lying in surgery with his brain partially exposed to the air. He is conscious. The reason he is not crying out in agony is that the brain has no pain neurons. He can’t feel the needle-sharp electrodes piercing his nerve cells. The man is about to have some of his neural tissue removed—resected, in surgical parlance—because of intractable, life-threatening epilepsy. Suddenly, one of the surgeons whips out a photo of Jennifer Aniston and shows it to the patient. A neuron in the man’s head fires excitedly. The surgeon lets out a war whoop.
Sound like a grade B movie? This experiment really happened. The neuron in question responded to seven photographs of actress Jennifer Aniston, while it practically ignored the 80 other images of everything else, including famous and non-famous people. Lead scientist Quian Quiroga said, “The first time we saw a neuron firing to seven different pictures of Jennifer Aniston—and nothing else—we literally jumped out of our chairs.”
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