You often
hear, “maybe if I had a bigger brain, I could be smarter”. Conversely, there
are those little teasing putdowns you get from your big brother, where he calls
your brain tiny or puny. But has anyone ever really thought about picking up
one of those old noggins and taking a look? There are actual studies that have
been done to correlate brain behavior with different aspects of the brain
itself. Research has been done in order to deduce which kind of brain would
belong to a particular individual. The idea that stems from all of this is that
the structure of the brain (depressions, indentations), affects the knowledge
that one has or uses toward a particular goal. To an extent, in my opinion, it
is a very probable notion that different features of a person’s brain may
dictate the types of activities or abilities that that individual may have or
are drawn to. I mean, this would explain why some people are more inclined to
play sports, or be an artist, or to even be musicians. Of course there really
isn’t a way to “pick up” the brain as I mentioned before (unless you’re
dissecting in a lab). The traditional ways of looking into the human body are by
the use of devices; such as a CT scanner or an MRI. If you know anything about
getting an MRI it’s that you’re enclosed in a “tunnel” of sorts and asked to
lie perfectly still. Now for people who are claustrophobic or get fidgety after
being in one spot for a while; is the brain activity at that time really
accurate enough to conclude anything about it? This is the one flaw (there may
be more, who knows) that I find in using these projected images and recorded
data.
In the case
of brain damage, researchers determine which ability is affected by the
impairment of a certain area of the brain. As a way of attempting to figure out
this out, they look to see if brain activity can be increased by stimulation.
That’ s all fine and well, but they are not accounting for the fact that
activity may be stimulated by not just one area of the brain but in fact
several. So while they are stimulating one area, the activity they are seeking
to uncover may not be displayed, because there is an additional area that is
not stimulated and was needed to be in order to convey a particular activity.
However, the practice of brain stimulation is done frequently in the U.S. The patients are actually awake during the
surgery and their brain activity is recorded. I have included a link below to
an exciting video involving this procedure!
Determining
what areas of the brain gives us our particular talents, interests, or
knowledge is nor a black and white or clean-cut task. It is more complex and
takes advanced, experienced individuals to uncover what’s really going on
underneath that skullcap of ours.
