Read Online Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Medina
Tags: Self-Help
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There is a neuron lurking in your head that is stimulated only when Jennifer Aniston is in the room.
A Jennifer Aniston neuron ? How could this be? Surely there is nothing in our evolutionary history suggesting that Jennifer Aniston is a permanent denizen of our brain wiring. (Aniston wasn’t even born until 1969, and there are regions in our brain whose designs are millions of years old). To make matters worse, the researchers also found a Halle Berry-specific neuron, a cell in the man’s brain that wouldn’t respond to pictures of Aniston or anything else. Just Berry. He also had a neuron specific to Bill Clinton. It no doubt was helpful to have a sense of humor while doing this kind of brain research.
Welcome to the world of experience-dependent brain wiring, where a great deal of the brain is hard-wired not to be hard-wired. Like a beautiful, rigorously trained ballerina, we are hard-wired to be flexible.
We can immediately divide the world’s brains into those who know of Jennifer Aniston or Halle Berry and those who don’t. The brains of those who do are not wired the same way as those who don’t. This seemingly ridiculous observation underlies a much larger concept. Our brains are so sensitive to external inputs that their physical wiring depends upon the culture in which they find themselves.
Even identical twins do not have identical brain wiring. Consider this thought experiment: Suppose two adult male twins rent the Halle Berry movie Catwoman , and we in our nifty little submarine are viewing their brains while they watch. Even though they are in the same room, sitting on the same couch, the twins see the movie from slightly different angles. We find that their brains are encoding visual memories of the video differently, in part because it is impossible to observe the video from the same spot. Seconds into the movie, they are already wiring themselves differently.
One of the twins earlier in the day read a magazine story about panned action movies, a picture of Berry figuring prominently on the cover. While watching the video, this twin’s brain is simultaneously accessing memories of the magazine. We observe that his brain is busy comparing and contrasting comments from the text with the movie and is assessing whether he agrees with them. The other twin has not seen this magazine, so his brain isn’t doing this. Even though the difference may seem subtle, the two brains are creating different memories of the same movie.
That’s the power of the Brain Rule. Learning results in physical changes in the brain, and these changes are unique to each individual. Not even identical twins having identical experiences possess brains that wire themselves exactly the same way. And you can trace the whole thing to experience.
on the street where you live
Perhaps a question is now popping up in your brain: If every brain is wired differently from every other brain, can we know anything about the organ?
Well, yes. The brain has billions of cells whose collective electrical efforts make a loving, wonderful you or, perhaps with less complexity, Kandel’s sea slug. All of these nerves work in a similar fashion. Every human comes equipped with a hippocampus, a pituitary gland, and the most sophisticated thinking store of electrochemistry on the planet: a cortex. These tissues function the same way in every brain.
How then can we explain the individuality? Consider a highway. The United States has one of the most extensive and complex ground transportation systems in the world. There are lots of variations on the idea of “road,” from interstate freeways, turnpikes, and state highways to residential streets, one-lane alleys, and dirt roads. Pathways in the human brain are similarly diverse. We have the neural equivalents of large interstate freeways, turnpikes, and state highways. These big trunks are the same from one person to the next, functioning in yours about the same way they function in mine. So a great
A Jennifer Aniston neuron ? How could this be? Surely there is nothing in our evolutionary history suggesting that Jennifer Aniston is a permanent denizen of our brain wiring. (Aniston wasn’t even born until 1969, and there are regions in our brain whose designs are millions of years old). To make matters worse, the researchers also found a Halle Berry-specific neuron, a cell in the man’s brain that wouldn’t respond to pictures of Aniston or anything else. Just Berry. He also had a neuron specific to Bill Clinton. It no doubt was helpful to have a sense of humor while doing this kind of brain research.
Welcome to the world of experience-dependent brain wiring, where a great deal of the brain is hard-wired not to be hard-wired. Like a beautiful, rigorously trained ballerina, we are hard-wired to be flexible.
We can immediately divide the world’s brains into those who know of Jennifer Aniston or Halle Berry and those who don’t. The brains of those who do are not wired the same way as those who don’t. This seemingly ridiculous observation underlies a much larger concept. Our brains are so sensitive to external inputs that their physical wiring depends upon the culture in which they find themselves.
Even identical twins do not have identical brain wiring. Consider this thought experiment: Suppose two adult male twins rent the Halle Berry movie Catwoman , and we in our nifty little submarine are viewing their brains while they watch. Even though they are in the same room, sitting on the same couch, the twins see the movie from slightly different angles. We find that their brains are encoding visual memories of the video differently, in part because it is impossible to observe the video from the same spot. Seconds into the movie, they are already wiring themselves differently.
One of the twins earlier in the day read a magazine story about panned action movies, a picture of Berry figuring prominently on the cover. While watching the video, this twin’s brain is simultaneously accessing memories of the magazine. We observe that his brain is busy comparing and contrasting comments from the text with the movie and is assessing whether he agrees with them. The other twin has not seen this magazine, so his brain isn’t doing this. Even though the difference may seem subtle, the two brains are creating different memories of the same movie.
That’s the power of the Brain Rule. Learning results in physical changes in the brain, and these changes are unique to each individual. Not even identical twins having identical experiences possess brains that wire themselves exactly the same way. And you can trace the whole thing to experience.
on the street where you live
Perhaps a question is now popping up in your brain: If every brain is wired differently from every other brain, can we know anything about the organ?
Well, yes. The brain has billions of cells whose collective electrical efforts make a loving, wonderful you or, perhaps with less complexity, Kandel’s sea slug. All of these nerves work in a similar fashion. Every human comes equipped with a hippocampus, a pituitary gland, and the most sophisticated thinking store of electrochemistry on the planet: a cortex. These tissues function the same way in every brain.
How then can we explain the individuality? Consider a highway. The United States has one of the most extensive and complex ground transportation systems in the world. There are lots of variations on the idea of “road,” from interstate freeways, turnpikes, and state highways to residential streets, one-lane alleys, and dirt roads. Pathways in the human brain are similarly diverse. We have the neural equivalents of large interstate freeways, turnpikes, and state highways. These big trunks are the same from one person to the next, functioning in yours about the same way they function in mine. So a great
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