Our Brain - Learn How It's All Connected!

The human brain is unique and a mystery as it is so different from any other creature we have encountered and study. Throughout history we have conducted many different studies and experiments to gain an understanding on what our brain is and how it works. We have had many discoveries, but humans have not discovered all the answers on the subject of our brain. The studies we have revealed however help us to understand many things such as illnesses, personalities, abilities, and emotions. The more we discover the more we can understand as with anything else. So, what has neuroscience (the study of our brain) taught us so far? It's an amazing organ with many functions and many different things all going on at once!

Our brain controls our heart rate, breathing, body temperature, and blood pressure. Our brain is the reason why we can dream, reason, have emotions, can experience our five senses (seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, and tasting), and can do physical things such as walking, talking, dancing, or sitting. Our brain is made up of 100 billon neurons which transmit messages to each other. Neurons are made up of three different parts: the cell body (the main part-if the cell body dies the neuron will die), the axon (carries the message), and the dendrites (nerve endings make the connection between other cells and allow the neurons to "talk" with other cells). Different types of neurons can control our muscles, how we receive the environment, our senses, and the connection between the brain and spinal cord depending on the type of neurons (Source 1).

From understanding neurons it's easy to see how things are all connected and work together. By understanding this it's easy to see how damage to the brain can have a huge effect on several functions of the body. In some of the newer studies researches are proving now how the brain is even connected with our immune system. One study has shown that people with a larger activity in the left side of the brain have a healthier and stronger immune system. Our left side of the brain controls things like communication, speech, language, memories, verbal intelligence, and information processing with things like typing, grammar, perception of details, math, logic, and analytic reasoning. Our right side of the brain controls things like social cues, perception of faces and patterns, intuitive reasoning, visual-spatial processing, comprehension, and unconscious awareness (Source 2). By now it is widely known that our attitudes affect our health, but the reasons of why a connection exists is hard to understand. This study shows how the brain plays a part in how a person responds to an emotion and the affects it has. This will help to explain the connection between emotions and the brain. Richard Davidson (a neuroscientist) and his group have found the link between emotional responses and physical health with the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is how a person responds to event emotionally. By performing an experiment on 52 individuals (ages 57-60) they discovered that people who have more activity in their left brain have a stronger immune system. They tested this theory using the flu virus (influenza). The researchers tested each individual to see which side of the brain they used more. To begin testing the researchers performed tests which measured the subject's brain activity. They tested emotions based off of memories. The subjects where to recall two different events one that made them happy and another that made them angry, sad, or fearful. As they concentrated on the emotion experienced electrical activity was measured for both the left and right sides of the prefrontal cortex. The left side of the brain has a positive perspective while the right side has a more negative perspective (proved in previous studies). After collecting all the data and then vaccinating each person against the flu virus they found their subjects with greater activity on the left side had a greater rise in the number of antibodies for influenza. They tested this by collecting serum samples to track the number of antibodies fighting the flu in the blood which determines the immune function. By conducting this research it begins to show why people with positive emotions are healthier (Source 3).

Another study shows that cell renewal is possible. Before this study it was believed that everyone was borne with a certain number of nerve cells which died from degeneration gradually in a person's lifetime. By discovering this we may now be able to help fight against memory or learning abilities that often get impaired or damaged from old age such as Alzheimer's. This group of researchers led by Professor Schwartz (scientists in the neurobiology department at Weizmann Institute of Science) showed that to maintain functionality or our brain we must rely on our immune system. Before this it was believed that access of the immune system in our CNS (central nervous system composed of our brain and spinal cord) was not a good thing. Having activity of the immune system was seen a threat to the nerve cell networks. Schwartz's group showed that if the levels are controlled than the cells have the potential to fight off diseases that can afflict the CNS. They have shown this by performing experiments on mice in controlled environments and exposing T cells to the mice. T cells are part of white cells which perform immune functions. By injecting T cells to the immune-deficient mice they found that cell renewal was partially restored (Source 4).

All this information shows that our brain is connected to everything and the reason why humans are so different from any other animal. Our brain is very complex and by conducting different experiments we can learn more on how our brain works. Knowledge is the answer as it always has been. With more knowledge we can learn how to enhance ourselves and find new cures to diseases or ways to better treat the ones we have cures to already. Our brain is a puzzle we must unlock to fully understand ourselves and maybe one day answer the question to why we are here and how we got here.

(Please see my sources for further explanation. All my information was taken from them-I only summarized and added a little opinon to the facts)

Sources:

1. Craig Freudenrich, Ph.D. "How Your Brain Works." 13 Sept. 2008 http://health.howstuffworks.com/brain.htm

2. Carey, Lane. "The Brain". Power Point Presentation.

3. University Of Wisconsin-Madison. "Study Shows Brain Activity Influences Immune Function." ScienceDaily 4 September 2003. 13 September 2008 http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2003/09/030904080106.htm

4. American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. "Immune Cells May Help Maintain Cognition And Brain Cell Renewal." ScienceDaily 16 January 2006. 13 September 2008

http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2006/01/060115153751.htm