Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Brain And Its Cognitive Abilities

The brain is the most important organ in your body. It is “you”…all of your other organs can be transplanted and you would still be the same person. Once your brain is removed from your body, you no longer exist. Besides using your brain to “think” it also does many other jobs for the body.

All the data you get from the world around you through your senses is interpreted through your brain cognitive skills. Your brain and brain abilities controls your body’s temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing. Your brain takes care of all your automatic functions, like swallowing, walking, and running, without even having to think about them. Our brain and cognitive skills does all of these functions quicker and more effectively than some of the largest and most powerful computers in the world.

For all of these functions and skills, our brain is small and only weighs about 3 pounds. Even though your brain makes up only 2% of your body, it uses over 20% of your total blood supply.

There are three main parts to the brain. The largest is the cerebrum which is on the top of your brain. The cerebral cortex is the convoluted surface of the cerebrum. This is the part that enables you to learn, reason, and remember.

The cerebrum is divided into two halves, which are named the right and left hemispheres. These halves are responsible for different tasks. When the two halves share information between them, they use the corpus callosum.

No one really understands the process that your brain uses to store and retrieve information. Scientists believe it works because of the way individual brain cells, called neurons, are connected to each other. Each neuron has a covering called dendrites, which are long channels that can receive electrical signals from other neurons. Each neuron is connected to thousands of other neurons.

When your brain thinks, feels sad, or does something, millions of neurons are sending messages to and from one another. Each neuron has a different shape, depending on what they do. However, all neurons share the ability of linking others in order to pass electrical and chemical messages.

Every time the brain learns something, your neurons grow more dendrites to become attached to other neurons and your cognitive skills are working. The more you repeat learning, or practice what you have learned, the strong these connections between neurons become and the more your cognitive abilities retain that information. This is why the human brain is more powerful than any computer that has ever been made.

No comments:

Post a Comment