Unit 2: Aspects of Personal Development

MODULE 6: THE POWER OF THE MIND

BRAINPOWER: COMPLEX ORGAN CONTROLS YOUR EVERY THOUGHT AND MOVE
How did you get here? No, no, no! It's not a question about your conception or birth. How did you get here? On this page. Reading
this story. The answer is a lot more complex than, "My teacher told me to read it" or "I clicked on it by accident."
The answer involves thought, as in "I want to get on the Internet"; movement — pressing the computer's power button and grasping
a mouse; memory—like recalling how to use a browser or a search engine; and word recognition such as "Brainpower" and an understanding
of its meaning.
In short, the answer involves a wrinkled, pinkish-gray, three-pound organ that is primarily composed of fat and water and goes by
the name of brain. You got to this article because that jelly-like mass topping off your spinal cord fired electrical signals to your hand telling it
how to move. You got to this article because your brain stored information about using a computer and the definition of words that you
learned years ago. You got to this article because your brain is working.
Keep reading to find out how it functions, if it repairs itself and if the effects of drug use are permanent.

The power to act

The brain has three major parts -- the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brain stem. The brain stem connects the spinal cord and the brain. It
controls functions that keep people alive such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure and food digestion. Those activities occur without any
thought. You aren't telling yourself, "Inhale. Exhale. Inhale." You're just breathing.
Things are different in the cerebellum. That region controls voluntary movement. When you want to lift your fork, wave your hand,
brush your hair or wink at a cutie, you form the thought and then an area in the cerebellum translates your will into action. It happens so
quickly. Think about how little time passes between your desire to continue reading this sentence and the time it takes your eyes to move to
this word or this one. It seems automatic, but it isn't.
Neurons, the basic functional units of the nervous system, are three-part units and are key to brain function. They are comprised of a
nerve cell body, axon and dendrite, and they power the rapid-fire process that turns thought into movement.
The thought moves as an electrical signal from the nerve cell down the axon to a dendrite, which looks like branches at the end of
nerve cells. The signal jumps from the end of the dendrite on one cell across the space, called a synapse, to the dendrite of another cell with
the help of chemicals called neurotransmitters. That signal continues jumping from cell to cell until it reaches the muscle you need to wave,
wink or walk.
The cerebrum is the largest of the three brain sections, accounts for about 85 percent of the brain's weight, and has four lobes. The
lobes-frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital -- each have different functions. They get their names from the sections of the skull that are next
to them.
The parietal lobe helps people understand what they see and feel, while the frontal lobe determines personality and emotions.
Vision functions are located in the occipital lobe, and hearing and word recognition abilities are in the temporal lobe.

A critical age
Because the brain's healthy functioning is essential to living and determines quality of life, doctors emphasize protecting the organ
from injury and chemical abuse.
There is a consensus among researchers that brain cells regenerate throughout life, said Doug Postels, a pediatric neurosurgeon in
New Orleans, but that new growth happens very slowly after a certain age.
"The size of the brain doesn't increase much after 3," Postels explains.
During the first three years of life, the brain experiences most of its growth and develops most of its potential for learning. That's the
time frame in which synaptogenesis, or the creation of pathways for brain cells to communicate, occurs.
Doctors generally accept that cut-off point for two reasons, Postels said. First, in situations where doctors removed parts of the
brains of patients younger than 3 to correct disorders, the remaining brain sections developed to assume the role of the portions those doctors
removed. But when physicians performed the same surgery on older patients, that adaptability function did not occur.
Second, "We know from experiments that if you deprive people of intellectual stimulation and put them in a dark room, that it
produces permanent changes in the brain," Postels said. "That occurs most dramatically before age 3. After that age, it's impossible to ethically
do a study.
" Previous research produced information about the effects of stimulation deprivation, but modern ethical guidelines prohibit such
research on people because of the potentially harmful outcome .
Drug damage
Because so little recovery occurs to brains damaged after age 3, the effects of drugs and alcohol on the brain might be lasting.
Doctors know what inhalants, steroids, marijuana, cocaine and alcohol do to the brain when people use them. "The question
scientists can't answer now is if the damage is permanent," said Sue Rusche, co-author of "False Messengers," a book on how addictive drugs
change the brain.
Inhalants, such as glue, paint, gasoline and aerosols, destroy the outer lining of nerve cells and make them unable to communicate
with one another. In 1993, more than 60 young people died from sniffing inhalants, according to National Families in Action, a drug education
center based in Atlanta.
Studies have found that marijuana use hinders memory, learning, judgment and reaction times, while steroids cause aggression and
violent mood swings.
Ecstasy use is rising among young people, Rusche said, and scientists have found that drug destroys neurons that make serotonin, a
chemical crucial in controlling sleep, violence, mood swings and sexual urges.
While doctors and scientists know about some effects drugs have on the brain, they don't have a full picture, Rusche said.
 "When people start using a drug, the scientists know nothing about it. These people are volunteering to be guinea pigs," said Rusche,
who is co-founder and executive director of National Families in Action. "Once enough people take it, scientists apply for grants and start
studying it. People are inventive. They find new drugs or new ways to take old drugs-like crack from cocaine.
"There's a lot we won't know about until later," she said. "The classic example is cigarettes. We allowed people to smoke for 100
years before we knew about all the horrible things that nicotine will do.
THE DOMINANT SIDE OF THE BRAIN
Researchers believed that brain dominance determines a person’s preferences, problem-solving style, personality characteristics,
and even career choices. For example, a right-brain individual will quickly get a feeling for a situation, while a left-brain person will usually ask a
lot of questions first. The following chart reflects additional difference between left and right-brain dominance.

PERSONAL PREFERENCE
LEFT DOMINANCE RIGHT DOMINANCE
Classical music Popular Music
Being on time A good times
Careful Planning To visualized the outcome
To consider alternative To go with the first idea
Being thoughtful Being active
Monopoly, scrabble or chess Athletics, art or music

There is nothing good or bad about either preference. Both orientations can be equally successful in accomplishing a single task;
however, one may be more appropriate over the other depending on the situation.

RESEARCH STUDY “THE BRAIN’S LEFT AND RIGHT SIDES SEEM TO WORK TOGETHER BETTER IN
MATHEMATICALLY GIFTED MIDDLE-SCHOOL YOUTH”
WASHINGTON- There really may be something different about the brains of math-heads. Mathematically gifted teens did better than
average-ability teens and college students on tests that required the two halves of the brain to cooperate, as reported in the April issue of
Neuropsychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
In the study, a joint effort of psychologists at the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences at Fort Benning,
Ga. and the University of Melbourne, Australia, researchers studied 60 right-handed males: 18 mathematically gifted (averaging nearly 14
years in age), 18 of average math ability (averaging just over 13), and 24 college students (averaging about 20). Math giftedness seems to favor
boys over girls, appearing an estimated six to 13 times more often. It's not known why but prenatal exposure to testosterone is suspected to
be one influence due to its selective benefit to the right half of the brain.
The gifted boys were recruited from a Challenges for Youth-Talented program at Iowa State University. Whereas the average
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) math score for college-bound high-school seniors is 500 (out of 800), the mathematically gifted boys' average
SAT math score in middle school was 620.
The boys viewed letter patterns flashed on the left or right sides of a computer screen, and had to indicate whether two patterns
matched or not - a simple way of learning how the brain responds to data put before either the left or right visual field, corresponding to
processing in the right or left brain because the input generally crosses over to the other side.
The letter patterns were presented in three conditions - one-sided, to the right hemisphere (left eye); one-sided, to the left
hemisphere (right eye); or bilaterally (both eyes). There were two types of tasks -- "local," saying two letters matched or mismatched on the
small letters that went into making big letters (for example, a big T whose two strokes were made of smaller T's), and "global," saying two big
letters matched or mismatched.
For the average teens and college students, the left brain hemisphere was faster for local matches and the right brain hemisphere
was faster for global matches. This fit prior research, which has indicated that the left hemisphere is adept at processing visual "parts," in this
case the letter details, while the right hemisphere is more adept at analyzing visual "wholes," in this case the global shapes of the big letters.
However, the mathematically gifted boys showed no such hemispheric differences. Those who were precocious in math were equally good at
processing global and local elements with either hemisphere, suggesting more interactive, cooperative left and right brains.
In addition, whereas average-ability boys and college students were slower on cooperative trials, which presented letter patterns on
both sides of the screen, the math-gifted showed the opposite pattern. They were slower on one-sided trials, but when a task "asked" both
sides of the brain to work together, they were considerably faster than the other boys
The study supports the growing notion that the mathematically gifted are better at relaying and integrating information between the
cerebral hemispheres. Says co-author Michael O'Boyle, PhD, "It's not that you have a special math module somewhere in your brain, but
rather that the brain's particular functional organization - which allows right-hemisphere contributions to be better integrated into the overall
cognitive/behavioral equation -- predisposes it towards the use of high-level imagery and spatial skills, which in turn just happen to be very
useful when it comes to doing math reasoning.
" The research supports the broader notion that "the functional (though not necessarily structural) organization of the brain may be
an important contributor to individual differences in cognitive abilities, talents and, at the very least, informationprocessing styles," says
O'Boyle.
He adds, "Various expressions of exceptionality, such as giftedness in math, music or art, may be the by-product of a brain that has
functionally organized itself in a qualitatively different way than the usual left/right hemispheric asymmetry." At the same time, O'Boyle is not
sure whether the findings could apply to math education in general. "Our work may perhaps have something to say about the optimal timing
of when a particular brain is most 'ready to learn' or acquire a given skill, but I don't think we can 'create' a math genius without the innate
talent already there," he says. Finally, given the rising use of testosterone by adult men, O'Boyle cautions that, "Testosterone taken later in life
will not help your math, as the window of influence on brain development is pretty much prenatal. It may enhance muscle mass, but it is
unlikely to help you solve calculus problems
YOU CAN GROW YOUR INTELLIGENCE
New Research Shows the Brain Can Be Developed Like a Muscle
Many people think of the brain as a mystery. They don’t know much about intelligence and how it works. When they do think about
what intelligence is, many people believe that a person is born either smart, average, or dumb—and stays that way for life. But new research
shows that the brain is more like a muscle—it changes and gets stronger when you use it. And scientists have been able to show just how the
brain grows and gets stronger when you learn. Everyone knows that when you lift weights, your muscles get bigger and you get stronger. A
person who can’t lift 20 pounds when they start exercising can get strong enough to lift 100 pounds after working out for a long time. That’s
because the muscles become larger and stronger with exercise. And when you stop exercising, the muscles shrink and you get weaker. That’s
why people say “Use it or lose it!” But most people don’t know that when they practice and learn new things, parts of their brain change and
get larger a lot like muscles do when they exercise. Inside the cortex of the brain are billions of tiny nerve cells, called neurons. The nerve cells
have branches connecting them to other cells in a complicated network. Communication between these brain cells is what allows us to think
and solve problems. When you learn new things, these tiny connections in the brain actually multiply and get stronger. The more that
you challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells grow. Then, things that you once found very hard or even impossible to do—like
speaking a foreign language or doing algebra—seem to become easy. The result is a stronger, smarter brain.

How Do We Know the Brain Can Grow Stronger?

Scientists started thinking that the human brain could develop and change when they studied animals’ brains. They found out that
animals who lived in a challenging environment, with other animals and toys to play with, were different from animals who lived alone in bare
cages. While the animals who lived alone just ate and slept all the time, the ones who lived with different toys and other animals were always
active. They spent a lot of time figuring out how to use the toys and how to get along with the other animals.
These animals had more connections between the nerve cells in their brains. The connections were bigger and stronger, too. In fact,
their whole brains were about 10% heavier than the brains of the animals who lived alone without toys. The animals who were exercising their
brains by playing with toys and each other were also “smarter”—they were better at solving problems and learning new things. Even old
animals got smarter and developed more connections in their brains when they got the chance to play with new toys and other animals. When
scientists put very old animals in the cage with younger animals and new toys to explore, their brains also grew by about 10%!
The Key to Growing the Brain: Practice!
From the first day they are born, babies are hearing people around them talk—all day, every day, to the baby and to each other.
They have to try to make sense of these strange sounds and figure out what they mean. In a way, babies are exercising their brains by listening
hard. Later, when they need to tell their parents what they want, they start practicing talking themselves. At first, they just make googoo
sounds. Then, words start coming. And by the time they are three years old, most can say whole sentences almost perfectly. Once children
learn a language, they don’t forget it. The child’s brain has changed—it has actually gotten smarter. This can happen because learning causes
permanent changes in the brain. The babies’ brain cells get larger and grow new connections between them. These new, stronger connections
make the child’s brain stronger and smarter, just like a weightlifter’s big muscles make them strong.
The Real Truth About “Smart” and “Dumb”.
No one thinks babies are stupid because they can’t talk. They just haven’t learned how to yet. But some people will call a person
dumb if they can’t solve math problems, or spell a word right, or read fast—even though all these things are learned with practice. At first, no
one can read or solve equations. But with practice, they can learn to do it. And the more a person learns, the easier it gets to learn new things
—because their brain “muscles” have gotten stronger! The students everyone thinks as the “smartest” may not have been born any different
from anyone else. But before they started school, they may have started to practice reading. They had already started to build up their
“reading muscles.” Then, in the classroom, everyone said, “That’s the smartest student in the class.” They don’t realize that any of the other
students could learn to do as well if they exercised and practiced reading as much. Remember, all of those other students learned to speak at
least one whole language already—something that grownups find very hard to do. They just need to build up their “reading muscles” too.
What Can You Do to Get Smarter? Just like a weightlifter or a basketball player, to be a brain athlete, you have to exercise and
practice. By practicing, you make your brain stronger. You also learn skills that let you use your brain in a smarter way—just like a basketball
player learns new moves. But many people miss out on the chance to grow a stronger brain because they think they can’t do it, or that it’s too
hard. It does take work, just like becoming stronger physically or becoming a better ball player does. Sometimes it even hurts! But when you
feel yourself get better and stronger, all the work is worth it!
THE MYTH OF MICHAEL JORDAN
Michael Jordan is one of the best basketball players of all time. His average points per game is the highest in NBA history – 31.5. He is
one of two players to score more than 3000 points in a single season. And he has 11 MVP awards – five for the regular season and six for the
finals.
It was dazzling to watch Jordan play. People often spoke of his grace on the court. They talked about his natural abilities. But the true
story is different. When he was a sophomore in high school, Michael Jordan didn’t even make the team. “It was embarrassing not making the
team,” he says. “They posted the roster [list of players] and it was there for a long, long time without my name on it. I remember being really
mad, too, because there was a guy who made it that wasn’t as good as me.”Someone else might have sulked, or quit. But this setback only
fueled Jordan’s desire to improve. “Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I’d close my eyes and see that list in
the locker room without my name on it,” Jordan says, “and that usually got me going again.”
The physical education teacher at Jordan’s high school, Ruby Sutton, describes Jordan’s commitment to the game in those days. “I
would normally get to school between 7 and 7:30. Michael would be at school before I would. Every time I’d come in and open these doors, I’d
hear the basketball. Fall, wintertime, summertime. Most mornings I had to run Michael out of the gym.”