Hello everyone,
Another week, another topic. This time the main area of interest is human brain.
My three part presentation will cover the following:
1. Brain structure, functions and other essential information
2. How it works? In this part I will concentrate on perception and cognitive functions of brain.
3. I? In the last part of my presentation I will write about self-consciousness and all related topics.
Info: The main source for this presentation is wikipedia unless stated otherwise.
Some well known facts
The human brain is the center of the human nervous system. It is divided in two hemispheres,
left and right. The exact numbers are not known but it consist around 50-100 billion neurons, of which about 10 billions are cortical pyramidal cells and are connected via approx. 100 trillion synaptic connections. The average (adult) human brain weighs about 1.5 kg with size around 1130cm3 for female and 1260cm3 for male. Of course these values varies for each individual. The colour also varies, but in generally it is mostly gray.
Did you know?
Despite their great achievements in architecture and profound knowledge of mathematics the ancient Egyptians were not aware what exactly brain is. They believed that brain is some kind of cooling organ, for the whole body. As proof to this theory they took common nose excretion (I didn’t know how to put it in gentle manner ;)). They thought that this is by-product of cooling process. :)
It is not related to topic but I would like add that, during mummification the brain was removed through nose by special hooks.
Structure overview
On the following image you can see brain divided into four area.
The blue area marks the Frontal Lobe (pol. Płat Czołowy) which is responsible for our motor functions, planning, reasoning, memory, awareness and emotions: pleasure, fear, frustration and anxious.
The yellow are marks the Parietal Lobe (pol. Płat Ciemieniowy) which is responsible for our senses, pain and temperature perception, understating of abstract symbols, concepts and geometry, movement and sight integration, sight and senses integration.
The brown area marks the Temporal Lobe (pol. Płat Skroniowy) which is responsible for our sight, colour and depth perception, image association.
The red area marks Occipital Lobe (pol. Płat Potyliczny) which is responsible for our speech and hearing, verbal memory, object recognition, musical sense, sound perception and fragrance recognition.
If you want to look at the brain very closely click here.
I think that this amount of knowledge is suitable for now. It will be useful when I write some about brain damages and brain capability of adaptation in next part of this presentation.
The last thing for today. Please take a look at this speech. The movie lasts twenty minutes but it is really worth it. I guess most of you already saw it.
Please let me know what you think.
The human brain is the most amazing organ. Have you ever think about difference between male and female brain ?
ReplyDeleteScientists have established that there are definitely anatomical differences between male and female brains f.e :
- men have 4% more brain cells than women, and about 100 grams more of brain tissue...(even though... woman have more dendritic connections between brain cells , it means that womens are better able to get in touch with their feelings and express them)
- woman can transfer data between the right and left hemisphere faster than men ( bigger corpus collusum )
- men tend to be more left brained (laungauge knowlage ), while woman have greater access to both sides.
This is a very interesting topic. Today's processors are nothing compared to the human brain and in my opinion it won't change for a loooong time. At least till we fully understand how our brain works, especially self-consciousness.
ReplyDeleteMarta:
ReplyDeleteso it's like new intel socket 1156 and 1366. Try to guess which is female one.
Adam:
Try to reach 2000 GFlops if you want a comparison.
Did you know that nerve cells of the brain remain the same throughout a person's life. When looking into the brain cells, all of the samples taken from the visual cortex, the region responsible for processing sight, were as old as the subjects themselves, supporting the idea that these cells do not regenerate. Similar results for cerebellum, whose role is coordinating body movements. The reason these cells live so long is probably that they need to be wired in a very stable way. However, They found that new neurons are created in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory. So it seems that even certain areas of your brain are capable of regenerating.
Human brain is very interesting topic. Big part of Artificial Intelligence is closely related to this topic. For today, Fuzzy ART algorithm is one of the best approximations of humans image learning and recognition process.
ReplyDeleteKrzyszfot: i'm afraid that socket 1366 or 1156 is male, socket A could be female anyway cpu Athlon or Pentium 3 is male for sure:p
ReplyDeleteAndrzej: If you try this in this way then you are wrong, socket with holes is a female one. The processor has pins so it's male one.
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt it’s very interesting. I only wonder if the human brain is good enough to fully understand how the human brain works. If not, we have to call some aliens for help.
ReplyDeleteKrzysztof: How would you call a socket that has pins and holes at once?
It's hermaphrodite type ;p
ReplyDeleteMarta it is very interesting what you said in first comment.
ReplyDeleteOur brain is the biggest mystery in our body and maybe even in our life. I think next big step in our civilization wouldn't come if we don't fully understand human brain.
I’ve heard sth interesting: researchers put a man into a Magnetic Resonance machine and made several tests. The result was, that brain activity after experiencing something nice was decreasing in time and activity correlated to something not nice was on the same level. This is why when something stinks in your flat it is annoying all the time, and when something smells nice after a while you forget about it..
ReplyDeleteit's very interesting because I think that we will never understand our brain - we can try and study it but it's impossible to know everything. But we should try to listen our body and explore human brain, because it will be very hugh step in disease treatment and understanding differences between male and female.
ReplyDeleteThis woman is amazing - she tells this things as if they are so simple and she make them more and more interesting and you want to hear her all the time :)