Neuro-Stuff

Since it’s Mother’s Day here in the States, I thought I’d take a moment to ponder Mom’s effect on the mind. 

Much of our brain’s wiring is inherited, and half of that inheritance, of course, comes from dear old Mom.    Prenatal nutrition plays a long lasting part in neurological development, too - alcohol, drugs, toxic exposure, vitamins.  Then there’s the way mom feeds a growing child, how the young brain is stimulated, and what mom teaches us about how to think, how she models things for us, social interactions, the impact of  stress, neglect, or child abuse, all of these things affect us not only as children but throughout life.

My mother did a lot right, brainwise, with my brother and I.  I  have memories from when we were as young as six months - an oddity I attribute to the flash cards she started using with us at about that age.     She stressed reading, science, art, flexible viewpoints, and all kinds of creative thinking - building neural pathways that are still incredibly useful.

But my brain doesn’t always work quite right, as though it isn’t firing on all cylinders - and she’s always had much the same issue.   Sometimes she just can’t think straight, gets overwhelmed and easily confused, and whatever causes this mental madness glitch, I inherited it.    (I like to think it’s endearing - leave me my illusions please) My brother was manic-depressive, but that seems to have come from the paternal line; my particular madness is more subtle.

So thanks, Mom. 

For teaching me to think, and, yes,  even for the  sometimes cute-but-confused brain malfunctions ;)  

How did your mom affect your brain wiring most, through inheritance or environment?  Did you do anything special, mind-wise, when raising your own kids, or have any great suggestions for other parents?  Maybe together we’ll will inspire the next generation of Mind-Wise Mom’s!

When most people discover a book that really connects for them, they can’t put it down. Me? I can’t keep it picked up!

Contrary, I know. But sometimes an author’s words hit all the right buttons, and my mental machinery gets all wound up and excited. It starts kicking out so many of its own ideas that I’m compelled to put the book down, pick up a pen and notepad, and scribble madly.

Brain Rules is one of those books. It sparked so many thoughts that I had trouble focusing on the book itself. My attempts to focus on a proper review have been even trickier. [click to continue...]

Don’t try to deny it, I know you’ve had them - everyone does - those embarrassing instants of mind-numbing stupidity. You’re faced with a task, question or action that you’ve done a thousand times, and yet, you flub it. Even worse, you may even recognize the problem *as you make it*, you may know that you’re about to screw up colossally, and yet, you’re unable to stop it. Brain fart. <cue obnoxious sound file>

Turns out, it’s more than just a cutesy way of explaining away our embarrassment over mental glitches. Brain farts are real. No, the brain doesn’t actually belch noxious fumes, but still — they are real, measurable events in the brain, and even more interesting, they’re predictable. Here’s the deal:

Researchers were looking in the brain for cues that a mistake was being made - hoping to spot some sort of activity blip that signaled an error, perhaps an instantaneous loss of concentration.

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Read Part 1

So. Where were we in the discussion of my personal computerized neuro-enlightenment madness? Oh yes, we were about to speculate on contributing factors: exactly how a new computer and online interaction may have brought on a burst of neural re-organization akin to enlightenment.

Here goes:

Sudden Exposure To New and Different Perspectives

I’d already had a pretty interesting mental reorganization as I learned basic DOS structure, and some early Visual Basic programming.

But accessing the Internet itself did more to broaden my perspectives, exposing me directly to people, ideas and cultures I’d otherwise never have encountered. I wasn’t just reading about them; I was interacting with people whose backgrounds spanned spanned generations, geography, income and educational levels. Mixed in was exposure to spiritual systems ranging from psychotic cults like Heaven’s Gate to traditional Buddhism.

Instead of looking on as a spectator, I was trying to put myself in these peoples shoes, to understand their perspectives and what made them tick. All that learning no doubt created a new neural pathway or two (thousand).

Removing Familiar Aspects Of Communication:

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Poor Ginkgo Bilboa. This rather innocent tree first came to my attention when I was still a child and the media “rediscovered” this living fossil growing in the living rooms of some monks in China. It doesn’t appear to have been very lost (both the monks and a slew of scientists knew where to find it ) but, whatever. I’m sure the tree recovered, once the paparazzi cleared out. (The monks were thankful, too)

Lost or not, the tree is quite remarkable.

It comes in two sexes; the male trees produce mobile sperm, making it both a rarity in the plant world, and the target of the media baby bump watch. Ginkgo trees were around long before the Jurassic period, where no doubt dinosaur cousins of Geraldo fed on its leaves. Very long lived (A Chinese example is said to be 3,500 years old), they’ve not only survived Geraldo, but the atomic blast in Hiroshima - and only a kilometer or so away from the blast crater. Off topic for MindTweaks, I know, and yet interesting.

But The Media’s most recent obsession over Ginkgo is, actually, on topic. It has to do with the subject of memory-loss. [click to continue...]

Ok… I wasn’t exactly a teenager, but “I Was A Twenty-Something Neuro Plasticity Junkie” doesn’t have the same ring.

Subject-line cuteness aside, I was in my mid-twenties when I took my first big-girl toke on neural-reorganization.

The year was 1991-ish, and I’d just been blessed with a hand-me-down Tandy computer.

Pre-Windows and ancient even then, the awkward hulk of black plastic limped along at the speed-of-lethargy. It required that commands be typed in (slowly) before it would agree to do even the simplest of tasks.

There were no visual cues to rely on, no cute little folder icons or program logos to click on. This frustrating interface meant I had to actually *think* about the directories I created - to think about them, and remember how they were structured.

The whole thing gave me a headache.

But after a period of floundering around, I finally grokked it. (For the Science Fiction Deprived among us, “to grok” something means to empathize and understand it so deeply that it becomes part of you.)

I don’t use the term “grok” lightly here - Learning to use DOS directory structure did something to my brain. The connections were made in a flash, a flash that seemingly flipped a switch deep inside my brain..

…and Things *happened*.

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