The New Brain

1. The New Brain By Richard Restak Presentation by Emily Warren & Holli Leug

2. Chapter 1- Brain Plasticity: Your Brain Changes Everyday • Originally believed that the brain became fixed in its structure and function by adolescence. • Thoughts, feelings, and actions determine the health of our brain. • The brain can change in short intervals, even daily.

3. Chapter 1- Continued • May not necessarily look different (as compared to an infants), but through skillful use of neuroimaging the changes can be seen. • Leslie G. Ungerleider of the National Institute of Health used images and sequences of finger movements over the course of a few weeks to show exactly what areas of the brain were controlling them, and over time the functional areas changed.

4. Chapter 2- Genius and Superior Performance: Are We All Capable? • People with extraordinary ability use their brains differently than the rest of us. • Chess experts use their frontal and parietal cortices (long-term memory). • Chess novices used their medial temporal lobes (short-term memory). • There are no special inherited qualities that distinguish people with special abilities.

5. Chapter 2- Continued

6. Chapter 2- Continued • The 10-Year Rule • “The highest levels of performance and achievement appear to require at least around 10 years of intense prior preparation.” • “Genius is about 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.” - Thomas Edison • General intelligence is linked to the amoung of grey matter in the brain.

7. Chapter 3- Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era • The technology around us can play a role in out brain plasticity (for better and worse). • ADD and ADHD affect many adults, in addition to children. • Attention Deficit Disorder • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

8. Chapter 3- Continued • ADD and ADHD have three main areas for diagnosis: • Motor Control • Impulsivity • Difficulties in organization and focus • Typically an inherited disorder, however, it is becoming more common to see “culturally” induced ADD and ADHD as a result of increasing demands on our attention and focus.

9. Chapter 3- Continued • Society is forcing people to essentially become ADD/ADHD to survive and be successful. • Largely influenced by technology. • Example- The scrolling text on the bottom of the screen during news broadcasts. • Example- Smart phones and their multitasking abilities.

10. Chapter 4- More Images: Is It Destabilizing Our Brains? • Recent research has shown that there are harmful effects produced by images of horror and mayhem. • Recent research shows that it can activate sensitive areas of the brain that change their long-term responses. • These images essentially replay in the mind over and over.

11. Chapter 4- Continued • All emotional responses and perceptions can be related to cortical and subcortical neurons. • Important in mediating between violence and aggression (personal space and territory) • J.L. Downer Study • Showed that deprivation of use of the amygdala causes an individual to lose their ability to interpret and appropriately respond to potential threat. • Immature brains cannot differentiate between real violence and images.

12. Chapter 5- The Happy Brain: The Joy and Music in You • Humor exerts a positive effect on general functioning. • Decreases stress • Boosts immune defenses • Relaxes muscle tension • Decreases blood pressure • Modulates pain • Frontal lobe is responsible for processing laughter.

13. Chapter 5- Continued • People with damage to their frontal lobe have difficulty laughing spontaneously, appreciating humor, and they tend to smile and laugh less. • Brain modifications can sometimes take unusual directions or develop in unexpected ways. • Non-musicians who were trained to notice subtle pitch changes required only a small amount of training to respond in ways typically only seen in professional musicians.

14. Chapter 6- Modern Imaging Techniques: Windows on the Mind • “In essence, a person can only lie when he knows the correct answer but chooses to pretend that he doesn’t.” • “You have to know the truth in order to deceive.” • Brain Fingerprinting • Detects changes in the brains electrical activity, which varies depends on if something is recognized.

15. Chapter 6- Continued • Reading Minds • Win or lose, the brain displays greatest activity in the medial frontal cortex. • Activity showed the greatest dips after loses. • “Losses loom greater than gains.” • Advances in neuroscience will allow us to clarify the role of emotions in some ethical and moral dilemmas.

16. Chapter 7- Cosmetic Psychopharmacology • Became prominent in the 1990’s to treat depression. • Prozac • Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor’s (SSRI’s) • “… the neuron associated with depression looks like a tree in winter: the dendrites (the receiving “antennae” of the neuron) are shortened and lacking branches.”

17. Chapter 7- Continued • Antidepressants prevent stress-induced changes like: • Hippocampal volume • Brain metabolism • Cell proliferation • Other behavioral activities that can be treated: • Shyness • Social Phobia

18. Chapter 8- Healing the Diseased Brain: New Attempts at Brain Repair • Neuroscientists once believed brain development ceased during young adulthood, but we now know the brain can rewire its circuitry at almost any age. • Reconfiguring the brain- • After a stroke the brain undergoes a complex pattern of reorganization

19. Chapter 8- Continued • Constraint Induced (CI) Movement Therapy • Strong side (arm) is constrained so that only the weak can be used • Goal is to reorganize brain circuits to reinstate the patient’s lost movements • Treatment results in a reversal of a “learned non-use” • Finger/Toe Stimulation

20. Chapter 8- Continued • Sensory Substitution • Brain works on whatever information it has available, i.e. deprived of sound, it will rely on sight and vice versa • Again, brain has to complete reorganization to accomplish this

21. Chapter 9- The New Brain • Many new applications of neuroscience likely to occur in next decade • Advances will be based on new developments in imaging- ways of looking at or measuring the brain • CT Scans (Computed Tomography) • PET Scans (Positron Emission Tomography) • MEG (Magnetocephalogram) • fMRI (functional MRI) • MSI (Magnetic Source Imaging)

22. Chapter 9- Continued • Mental operations in “real time”, i.e. measurement of what the brain processes during learning, language, emotional experiences, and thinking • Predicting human behavior • Genetics for specific cognitive abilities (intelligence, attention, and memory) • Brain changes over a lifetime • No two brains are the same, not even twins • Brain differs in same person during life’s developmental stages (infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age)

23. Chapter 9- Continued • Will functions by computers equal or beat the human brain capacity? • Implantation technologies to enhance brain power • A device already used to prevent epileptic seizures and alleviate depression • Neuroethics- the moral and ethical issues arising • from new brain-related scientific findings • TECHNOLOGICALLY we can do it, but • ETHICALLY should we do it?

24. Relating it to Business • So How Does This Relate? • Our environment is essentially making us ADD and increasing our ability to multitask. • Leadership needs to take advantage of the ability to focus on multiple projects at once.