• Question: does our common stereotype of brains as a big sponge correspond with he pictures on the scanners

    Asked by mspeirs96 to Anne, Carolyn, Joe, Mariana, Nick on 25 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Carolyn McGettigan

      Carolyn McGettigan answered on 25 Mar 2010:

      Well, brains are pretty gooey but they have a very distinctive structure – I guess some of the bits like the cerebellum look like natural sponge…

      In terms of brain activation, where we think about our brains ‘mopping up’ all the information around us, well, that’s quite true. Even playing a very simple sound over headphones will cause increased activation in large portions of the brain. But our MRI experiments only ever look at comparisons, like ‘which parts of the brain are more active when listening to speech compared with musical notes?’, and so what this often doesn’t reveal is that the whole of our brain is really active all the time. Even when we’re sitting still or sleeping, the brain is doing a lot just to regulate things like breathing and heart rate. And, of course we have a great capacity to learn new things, like a sponge picks up lots of water.

    • Photo: Joseph Devlin

      Joseph Devlin answered on 25 Mar 2010:

      Howdy mspiers,

      We *may* have different stereotypes… 🙂

      In some sense, a sponge isn’t a bad analogy. Physically brains are soft and spongy although they wouldn’t be any good at soaking up water cause they are already full of it. And you couldn’t wring them out because it would fall apart in your hands. Meta-physically, though, your brain is constantly soaking new experiences, new information, new events and that’s kind of sponge like.

      Carolyn has a picture of her brain on her profile — it’s worth a look!

    • Photo: Nick Bradshaw

      Nick Bradshaw answered on 26 Mar 2010:

      Well the brain is certainly a lot more complicated. The most striking thing looking at these images is the number of different regions of the brain, which all made up of different combinations of things and so look different on scanners. The brain is basically a huge computer of billions of neuron cells – some transmitting information, others storing it

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