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Your Brain Is a Work in Progress

Your Brain Is a Work in Progress. Brain and Consciousness. Timeline: 7:45 – 9:00. Drfredtravis.com for copy of lecture power points. Our Brain Is Unassembled at Birth. Dendrites, Dendritic spines. Synaptic connections naturally increase during first 3 years of life.

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Your Brain Is a Work in Progress

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  1. Your Brain Is a Work in Progress Brain and Consciousness

  2. Timeline: 7:45 – 9:00 Drfredtravis.com for copy of lecture power points

  3. Our Brain Is Unassembled at Birth

  4. Dendrites, Dendritic spines

  5. Synaptic connections naturally increase during first 3 years of life.

  6. Number of Connections Increases and then Decreases • Years

  7. Why High Synaptic Density from 2-9 Years? • This is a physiological counterpart of all possibilities. This sets the stage for ongoing experience to enliven specific cortical circuits to deal with current experiences.

  8. Why Synaptic Pruning from 10-18 Years? • Pruning is not bad (garden analogy) • Pruning eliminates connections that are not used, and strengthens brain connections that are used. • This optimizes our ability to interact with the environment.

  9. Glial: Myelination—speed up the action potential 20 times Schwann Cell (body) Oligodendroglia (brain)

  10. Notice the Orderliness of Axonal Connections

  11. 1. Development Why might we learn Word of Wisdom at age 5, TM at 10, and TM-Sidhis at 15 years?

  12. Experience Interacts with Natural Maturation Experience Maturation Amount of Influence 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40+ Years

  13. Neuroplasticity: Experiences changes the brain Buonomano, D.V., Merzenich, M.M., 1998. Cortical plasticity: from synapses to maps. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 21, 149-186

  14. Dendritic Spines change Minute-by-Minute

  15. Exercise: Let’s pretend we are neurons. Neurons cannot move, but they can move their arms around, and even grow new arms…. I’ll signal a person in front, who will tap people behind them and so on….let’s see how quickly the “tap” makes it to the back.

  16. Your Brain is a River, Not a Rock 70% of connections change every day….

  17. London Taxi Cab Drivers

  18. It’s our Choice: Reinforce Old Habits or Make New ones New decisions = New brain patterns Same decisions = Same brain patterns

  19. Reduced frontal (executive center) and hippocampal (memory) volume. Evans & Schamberg (2009) Childhood poverty, chronic stress, and adult working memory, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(16) 6545–6549

  20. Negative Experiences Number of violent films • Behavioral Data: After watching violent movies, you are less likely to help others.

  21. Antibiotic led to dizziness “The Brain That Repairs Itself” • Restricted Mitt Technology for stroke victims

  22. Education: Encounter New Ideas

  23. When Law Students Study: Increased Myelination in frontal executive circuits. Mackey et al, 2012, Frontiers in Neuroanatomy

  24. It’s our Choice: Reinforce Old Habits or Make New ones • FEED • Focus • Effort • Effortlessness • Determination Arden, Rewire Your Brain

  25. Transcending thought is infinitely more valuable than thinking. --Maharishi

  26. Four Months TM Practice Front Center Back Eyes Open TM Travis, 1991

  27. Eight Years TM Practice Front Center Back Eyes Open TM Travis, 1991

  28. Main Point Biologically driven processes sculpt the number of connections (synapses) and nature of the output fibers (myelination). The maturation of brain structure and functioning allows increasingly abstract levels of inner experience to be maintained in a stable way including growth towards enlightenment.

  29. Group Discussion • Why does it take time to evolve?

  30. Brain Activity Associated with General Intelligence

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