How Does the Brain Work?
Editor’s Note: We asked several scientists from various fields what they thought were the greatest mysteries today, and then we added a few that were on our minds, too. This article is one of 15 in LiveScience’s “Greatest Mysteries” series running each weekday. Our brains can fathom the beginning of time and the end of the universe, but is any brain capable of understanding itself? With billions of neurons, each with thousands of connections, one’s noggin is a complex, and yes congested, mental freeway. Neurologists and cognitive scientists nowadays are probing how the mind gives rise to thoughts, actions, emotions and ultimately consciousness. The complex machine is difficult for even the brainiest of scientists to wrap their heads around. But the payoff for such an achievement could be huge. “If we understand the brain, we will understand both its capacities and its limits for thought, emotions, reasoning, love and every other aspect of human life,” said Norman Weinberger, a neurosci
N Scherer Answer: Mechanically or conceptually? A subway system works mechanically by cars on steel wheels, rails, and 500 volts of electricity shunted hither and yon on overhead wires. Conceptually though it’s a widget to get folks from where they live to where they work, and it works by figuring out the paths they take, assigning trains to those routes, and discounting fares off-peak to even out the rush-hour crowds. Mechanically the brain is billions of cells called neurons that can produce little bursts of electricity that can be passed from cell to cell. (Brain neurons are densely interconnected.) These bursts produce weak electric fields at the surface of the head that can be recorded, hence the EEG (“electro-encephalogram”, Greek for recording (gram) of head (cephalus) electricity, aha.) Coarse features in the EEG are found to be related to broad categories of brain activity: larger, slowly-varying electric fields indicate sleep, smaller, faster-varying fields alertness, etc. Mo
How does the brain work? There is no short answer to that question, because the brain is the most complex organ in the human body. The brain is made up of 100 billion neurons, or nerve cells, and different parts of the brain are responsible for different functions, like problem solving, movement and speech. In sum, the brain regulates practically all activity in the body. You can find answers to all of your brain questions at Neuroscience for Kids, a site which has everything you ever wanted to know about the brain, in terms you can understand. Advertisement More to Explore Departments Articles Answers Themes Field Trips Exhibits Tips Trivia Most Popular Science Fair Center Human Body Dinosaurs The Middle Ages Related Spots BookSpot MuseumSpot LibrarySpot Back to Home Page Find more useful resources in popular areas of the StartSpot Network… Today’s Headlines Bestselling Books Online Museums Historic Documents Career Profiles Click and Give Genealogy How-To Science Fair Ideas Interna
