Your brain forms roughly 10,000 new cells every day, but unless they hook up to preexisting cells with strong memories, they die. Serves them right.
I started out as a neurologist. I then trained in neuropathology and was focused on neurodegeneration. So, for years, I studied Alzheimer's, aging, Parkinson's, that kind of thing.
When people hear that I'm a neuroscientist, they ask me tough questions. 'Will grandpa learn to walk again after his stroke?' 'How can my son overcome his dyslexia?' 'What could have caused my best friend to become schizophrenic?' When I can't give satisfying answers, they look disappointed - and I feel embarrassed.
Neurons are living cells with a metabolism. And they need glucose in order to function. Glucose is the fuel of the brain, just like gasoline is the fuel of your car.
Because many squid have brain nerve fibres that are hundreds of times thicker than those of humans, neuroscientists have long used them for research. These nerve fibres have led to so many breakthroughs in the study of neurons that many scientists joke that the squid should receive a Nobel Prize.
You can lead your brain and inspire it. You can actively shape new neural pathways.
Cocoa boosts brain serotonin. Almost every single antidepressant aims at either enhancing serotonin or keeping it in the brain longer. Chocolate or cocoa does that very well.
In adult centers the nerve paths are something fixed, ended, immutable. Everything may die, nothing may be regenerated.
Mediums change you by their very existence. They do this on fundamental levels because they force you to favour certain parts of your brain over others.
The thing I'm most interested in is the nervous system. How do brains grow? How do genes build complicated nervous systems?
The brain is constantly adapting.
Lion's mane may be our first 'smart' mushroom. It is a safe, edible fungus that appears to confer cognitive benefits on our aging population.
Neuroscience is now a very important research area in biology. We are now understanding a lot more about brains in babies, as well as children and adults.
If stem cells divide equally, so both daughter cells look more or less the same, each one becomes another stem cell. If the split is unequal, neurons form prematurely.
In any complex organism, brain formation and function must be controlled in part by genes.
Walking is the only way proven to stave off cognitive decline - it works.
The brain is plastic its whole life span.
The human brain can soften as a result of incessant listening to music with an intent to commit prose.
Throughout our lifetimes, we are constantly regenerating new brain cells in the hippocampus, a process called neurogenesis. New stem cells are constantly being born in the hippocampus that ultimately differentiate into fully functional neurons.
