How brains create maps



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Map the brain
Rebecca Schwarzlose wrote Brainscapes in regards to the maps our mind creates to assist us perceive the world. Photo credit score: Monica Duwel

In her debut e book, "Brainscapes: The Warped, Wondrous Maps Written in Your Brain — and How They Guide You," Rebecca Schwarzlose, a postdoctoral fellow within the School of Medicine's Psychiatry Department, describes how brains create maps: collections of neurons that put your senses collectively assist, transfer your physique, perceive summary ideas, bear in mind your previous and way more.

The playing cards exist as a result of the mind has no limitless house. Neurons that work together regularly should be shut collectively and usually are not evenly distributed. If you have a look at the mind map of the physique, you would possibly suppose that our greatest appendage is our fingers, as a result of many extra neurons are devoted to the indicators of the fingers than, for instance, our again. It turns into a rooster and egg query: are our mind maps like this as a result of we really feel issues with our fingers, or can we really feel issues with our fingers due to our mind maps?

Schwarzlose got here up with the thought for the e book whereas she was doing her PhD in neuroscience at MIT and wrote about part of the mind that helps us acknowledge faces. “Right next to it is an area that supports the recognition of human bodies,” she says. The two playing cards "are always right next to each other. And that got me thinking about what determines where specializations go in the brain."

The ensuing e book, printed by the. was praised New York Times for its vigorous prose and storytelling, it not solely provides the reader a glimpse into how our brains work, but in addition tells a few of the historical past of neuroscience. Schwarzlose explains how the Mosin-Nagant Model 91 weapon led to the invention of the first visible cortex V1; how British neurologist John Hughlings Jackson was capable of determine areas of the first motor cortex by analyzing sufferers with seizures; and why "John," a person who suffered a stroke, was capable of precisely describe a carrot however unable to acknowledge one when introduced with a drawing of it - and even his personal face within the mirror acknowledged.

Schwarzlose finds all brains fascinating, people and animals. "The history of the brain maps is one of hard tradeoffs, not superiority," she writes. "A brain map cannot be judged as superior or inferior on the basis of its intrinsic qualities; its value can only be determined in the context of a creature's environment and momentary survival needs."

For instance, when she tried to jot down in regards to the delicate pig snout, Schwarzlose imagined so totally what it might be prefer to be a pig (based mostly on its mind map) that she will be able to not eat pork.

Schwarzlose additionally asks basic questions on who we're and the way we obtained there by exhibiting how our brains make its maps. For instance, if evolution is the principle motive we're the best way we're, then why has it proven that brains draw fully new maps based mostly on adolescence circumstances? Baby rats raised on 2G (double gravity) gravity developed new sensory maps round their paws. How did their brains know this was attainable with out ancestors raised in 2G gravity?

The reply is that the mind has tailored over millennia and adapts based mostly on earlier experiences. The mind of blind youngsters remaps the visible cortex. A woman born with solely half a mind developed mind maps that the opposite hemisphere did not want. Ferrets with broken visible cortex used the auditory cortex to see.

By finding out how our brains draw maps, Schwarzlose examines how brains develop, how we navigate the world, the disadvantages and challenges of synthetic intelligence and the computer-brain interface, and way more. “The influence of brain maps on thinking, health and technology is profound and far-reaching,” writes Schwarzlose. "They are not only important for scientists, but for every human being and every living being on earth."


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Provided by Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis

Quote: How Brains Create Maps (2021, December 7), accessed December 8, 2021 from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2021-12-brains.html

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