Brain Day was an event at which all Year 12 and 13 psychology students enjoyed fascinating insight into the rapidly developing world of psychological research and technology. Aside from a thought-provoking lecture about what the future of psychology holds, the Year 13s had a day of sessions with Dr Guy Sutton in which he discussed a range of intriguing topics. These varied from neuroplasticity, the schizophrenic brain, and the causes of addiction. Undoubtedly, the most interesting part of the workshop was the dissection of a sheep’s brain, where we were able to see the areas of the brain we had discussed first hand, and explore the world of neuroscience further with the help of Dr Sutton’s expertise.
Decade of the Brain
One topic that was talked about was the Decade of the Brain in the 1990s. This term was coined by George Bush, who use it as a government sponsored research initiative to raise the face of brain research.
There were 3 main achievements of the decade:
Firstly, the transisition from the understanding of nerve development from a simple description to a detailed explanation of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. Neurogenesis is when new neurons are formed in the brain, and was first demonstrated by Eriksson et al. in 1998. He demonstrated that there is neurogenesis in the mature cerebral cortex and hippocampus, and are both involved in memory and learning. This understanding matured through the decade, broadening the description of neural development, how nerves are produced, how they migrate to where they’re required and how synaptic connections are made.
Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change. Important discoveries were made about this characteristic, as psycholigists discovered that from birth, interactions with environmental stimuli initiate neural communication and molecular processes that literally change the physical structure of the brain. For example, a stimulus in the environment like a loved one dying can drastically change the growth and so structure of the brain.
The second achievement was the development of brain imaging and laboratory techniques so that psychologists could investigate nerve functions. These developments were techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that detect changes in blood oxygenation and blood flow in response to neural activity. MEG (Magnetoencephalography) was also discovered. MEG detects, records and analyses the magnetic fields produced by electrical currents in the brain. Both these techniques were amazing breakthroughs that allowed the visualisation of the brain as it worked and as individuals performed tasks, helping map out the brain in terms of the different structures for different functions.
Lastly, there was a beginning of gene mapping of the brain development and functions. The decade of the brain started to identify characteristics and functions of genes involved in development and specialisation of the brain, finding thousands of genes involved in the process. In over 10 years of the brain, more than 1000 times more neurons are generated and integrated.
Many mutated human genes that cause neurodegenerative diseases were discovered, such as the gene for Huntingdon’s disease. Using the discoveries made in this decade, these genes are now being used in animal models to determine how they develop, so that these diseases can now be prevented.
Myths about the brain
Another session that was lead covered various myths about the brain. The first one debunked was being only ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’. This is a belief that is very commonly believed, and something that is seen as lot, especially on social media. For example, the ‘spinning silhouette’ of a dancer states that if you see the dancer rotating clockwise then you are more right-brained, and if you see it rotating counter-clockwise then you are more left-brained. The same is for a walking horse or any similar visuals that often pop-up.
What is confusing, is that some people display more left or right brained behavioural traits, such as language ability being laterised mainly in the left brain hemisphere. Both sides support and communicate with each other, with all types of information processed across both hemispheres. In the case of language ability, many important language-related components will be dependent on right brain structures. This means, it is impossible for someone to be completely left or right brained.
The next myth was that we only use 10% of our brain, however this is completely false, with no element of truth to it. Again, there is a lot of social media that feeds into this myth, probably stemming from the film ‘Lucy’ (it might be a great film, but has little psychological relevance!). Psychologist Sala conducted many powerful functional neuroimaging scans and found ‘no “dead spits” awaiting reassingment…in other words, we normally use it all’. Additionally, tissue losses of far less than 90% of the brain can have devasting effects on consciousness, personality, emotions, ability and movements, proving that we must use more than 10% of brains. At rest, we may be only using a relatively small proportion of total brain potential, but this is still far more than 10%.
One very entertaining myth was that playing Mozart to babies makes them more intelligent. This stems from the study in 1993 of Shaw and Rauscher – slightly less innovative and amazing research from the decade of the brain. These psychologists proposed the ‘Mozart effect’, which was an increase in cognitive development in children under the age of three who had listened to Mozart as babies. This was not only proved false by subsequent research, but also analysing the initial study. When people looked backed over the 1993 research, they found some children with very high scores on tests and some with very low, for reasons that had no connection to Mozart!
A final large myth is that the bigger the brain, the more intelligent you are. This is false, and a very rudimentary belief to measure intelligence. Far more many factors affect how clever an individual is, with the main reason most likely being neural interconnections formed in particular brain regions. To draw on the most famous genius of all, Albert Einstein had a normal brain size. However, supporting the neural interconnections theory, certain parts of his brain were larger than normal, including the inferior parietal region that is involved in Maths ability.
Brain-computer interfaces
One part of the day was on brain-computer interfaces, which both year 12 and year 13 were lucky enough to attend. We started off learning that human brains decode information from the world around us, which many studies have shown. For example, in 2012 reserachers recorded neural patterns from the cortex in patients undergoing brain surgery, and found the neural patterns caused by hearing the word were very similar to the patient thinking the same word. This raised the question if it was possible to determine intended speech from brain activity. This predictable nature of neural patterns has lead to many benefits and possibilities, some of which were incredibly exciting, and some that many found quite frightening.
One that sparked lots of debate after was Elon Musk developing implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) in a project called the ‘neuralink programme’. He plans to surgically insert a ‘neural lace’ in the brain that he aims would ‘lead to symbiosis with artificial intelligence’. He aims for this to allow communication with external software and devices, eliminating the need for manual controls. For example, instead for texting a message to your friend, you would simply need to think it! However, many in the room found this worrying, with how invasive the technology will become (although the chip is inserted on the very outer layer of the brain: the cortex).
One use of BCIs that is slightly more positive is to create solutions for paralysis. In 2012, neuroscientists developed a neural interface system they named the very witty ‘BrainGate’. This system translates neural activity directly into control signals for robotic arms, and they achieved two paralysed people being able to control a robotic arm to do movements such as reaching and grasping. These advancements were pushed even further in 2017, when Ajiboy and others succeeded in getting a paralysed man to be able to command and direct his paralysed arm with 80 to 100% accuracy, even drink a mug of coffee and feed himself. This was done by implanting electrodes in the motor cortex, and the upper and lower arms, that were paralysed. When electrical stimulation in the motor cortex happening, when the man would think about lifting his arm, the electrodes in the brain picked up the stimulation and induce movement in the hand while bypassing the spinal cord damage in around the elbow and shoulder.
We all came away from this talk far more educated about the future of BCIs and the incredibly positive impacts that are already happening – even if we were slightly cautious about Elon Musk coming near us with brain chips!
Overall, the brain day was an incredibly enriching experience, providing fascinating insights into the past, present and future of brain research.
-Molly Light