Word: cortex
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...some findings are unexpected, even counterintuitive. Creativity, for instance, rarely strikes in a flash but more typically results from steady cogitation. Multitasking, for all its seeming efficiency, can exact a heavy toll on the quality of our output. Daily meditation physically transforms the cerebral cortex. Physical exercise may be as important as mental gymnastics in keeping Alzheimer's disease at bay. Baby Einstein-type videos make a poor substitute for human interaction in stimulating a tender young mind. And perhaps the most unexpected and comforting, recent research confirms that the human brain retains an astonishing degree of plasticity and capacity...
...provided “some really strong physical evidence that there are some long-term physical affects” of meditation, she said. “Dr. Lazar’s findings are relatively unique; they show that the mind, through practice, can increase the thickness of the prefrontal cortex,” according to fellow corroborator on the study, Dr. Herbert Benson—the Mind/Body Medical Institute Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. This thickening of the cortex is contrary to what should happen as the brain ages so the researchers concluded that the meditation...
...regain lost motor skills. The non-invasive therapy, called transcranial magnetic simulation (TMS), uses a figure eight-shaped coil to deliver weak, pulsating electrical currents to specific areas of the brain. When the therapy is applied for 10 to 20 minutes to the brain’s motor cortex, the magnetic field generated by the electrical currents “improved motor functions in stroke patients,” Fregni said. When healthy, the two sides of the brain communicate with each other. After a stroke, when one side of the brain becomes damaged, the healthy half of the brain...
...discovering the 'materialist' (that is, 'physical') basis for Lenin's political and philosophical genius." Two years and 34,000 slices later, Vogt found, and the Journal of the American Medical Association reported, a "large number of paths proceeding from the pyramidal cells [triangular nerve cells in the cerebral cortex]." These were taken to explain "the wide range and the multiplicity of ideas that developed in the brain of Lenin and, particularly, his capacity for quickly getting his bearings when confronted with the most complex situations and problems ..." Conclusion? "The key to a materialistic view of Lenin's genius has been...
What's more, when he recorded brain activity using electroencephalograms, Battaglia found that those with higher scores for shyness had lower levels of activity in the cortex, where sophisticated thought takes place. That suggested higher levels of activity in the more primitive amygdala, where anxiety and alarm are sounded. Shy children, Battaglia concluded, may simply be less adept at reading the facial flickers other kids use as social cues. Unable to rely on those helpful signals, they tend to go on high alert, feeling anxious about any face they can't decipher. "The capacity to interpret faces...