UNDERSTANDING YOUR BRAIN --- LIFTING THE LID ON WHAT'S INSIDE YOUR HEAD by Rebecca Treays, Christyan Fox, Nicholas Mackintosh and Mary Cartwright. Usborne Publishing Ltd., 1995, EDC Publishing, American Ed., 1996
INTRODUCTION --- What "ologists" do (p2-3)
1) Brain parts (p4-5)
[1] Hemispheres --- left and right
[2] Pons to the rescue
2) Whats inside? (p6-7)
[1] What does a neuron look like
[2] How do neurons carry messages
[3] Jumping the gap
[4] Feeding the brain
[5] Grey matter
[6] The nervous system
3) Baby brains (p8-9)
[1] Trial and error
[2] Baby talk
[3] Out of sight
[4] How the brain grows
[5] Learning to think
4) Intelligence (p10-11)
[1] Big heads
[2] Testing times
[3] Taking the I.Q. test
[4] Born or bred?
5) Eyesight (p12-13)
[1] Seeing
[2] A 3-D world
[3] Funny photos
[4] Optical illusions
[5] More than meets the eye
[6] Blind spot
6) Memory (p14-15)
[1] Long-term memory
Your long-term memory stores everything you know! It has a limitless capacity.
[2] Short-term memory
Your short-term memory can only store a maximum of NINE THINGS at one time and most
people can store only SEVEN THINGS at a time!
[3] Storage
You can store different sorts of information in your memory in different ways! Most
FACTS in your short-term memory are stored as SOUNDS!
[4] What are memories?
(1) Everything you learn and all your experiences are "encoded" in your brain as patterns of electrical pulses passing between neurons!
(2) Thus memories are patterns of pulses which are repeated without the experience actually taking place!
7) Remembering (p16-17)
(1) Loony lists
(2) Short-term memory test
You can get more in your short-term memory if you can "group" the facts
you have to store into BIGGER UNITS!
8) Staying the same (p18-19)
[1] Central heating
[2] Monitoring the blood
(1) Hunger pangs
(2) Waterworks and waste
[3] Kidney cross-section
9) Consciousness (p20-21)
[1] Screening --- your brain's screening process stops your consciousness from getting confused!
(1) Freud's theory of the way your unconscious works to hide embarrassing or painful thoughts!
(2) Your "unconscious" is the place you hide embarrassing or painful thoughts according to Freud. Sometimes things in your unconscious come out when you are unaware of what you are doing, such as in dreams or slips of your tongue. (p30)
[2] Sleepy heads and dreamers --- REM (rapid eye Movement) and Non-REM sleep (p31)
10) Mental illness (p22-23)
[1] Schizophrenia
[2] Depression
[3] Phobias
[4] Causes and cures --- biological (drugs) and psychological (talking) treatments
[5] Strokes
[6] Parkinson's disease
11) Drugs (p24)
12) Out of this world (p25)
13) Animal brains (p26-27)
14) Computer brains (p28-29)
15) Brains in history (p30-31)
[1] Ancient ideas --- from lungs to heart to the brain as the place thoughts, feelings and emotions are controlled!
[2] Phrenology --- From the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century, phrenology was a
very popular "brain science." Phrenologists believed that they could analyze a person's character from the
shape and bumps of their skull! They believed that the skull was shaped by the structure of the brain beneath it, and that different parts of the brain werer responsible for very specific characteristics, skills and talents.
[3] Localization --- Phrenology was the silliest of all localization theories.
[4] Trepanning --- It was the ancient medical practice that survived until the Middle Ages. It involved
making a small hole in someone's skull! This was meant to release "evil spirits" that were making the patient
insane. Even though it may have helped some people with brain growths, it probably did far more harm than
good.
INDEX AND PUZZLE ANSWERS (p32)
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