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by Ellen Poliakoff and Sally Bee Illustrations by Serena Korda
BRAIN
storming
The 1990’s was hailed as the decade of the brain. We ask, what
do we really know about the elusive workings of the grey matter
that we call the brain? Neuroscientists study the nervous system
and the brain and how it can give rise to our thoughts and
behaviour. They examine how the brain works and develops and
what goes wrong in neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s
disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
Copyright, Poliakoff and Bee, 2000
BRAIN CELLS
There are approximately 100 billion star shaped neurons in the brain and trillions of
glial cells which are like glue and support the neurons. Signals arrive at the dendrites
and then travel as electrical impulses along the cell. The long tail or axon is insulated
by a fatty myelin sheath - impulses can travel along them as fast as 120 metres per
second - that’s as much as the length of a football pitch in one second! At the end of
the axon, the electrical message is converted into a chemical message - chemical
neurotransmitters are released in tiny packages into the gap (or synapse) between the
end of one neuron and the start of the next. The neurotransmitters cross the synapse
and fit into special receptors on the next cell and the signal is passed on. A “typical”
neuron has between 1,000 and 10,000 synapses or connections - with 100 billion of
them imagine the complexity!
Adolescents may behave the

way they do because their
brains are not yet mature.
GROWING BRAINS
Although the basics of our brain circuitry are specified by our genes, our brain
organisation is highly affected by our environment. Even identical twins, with exactly
the same genes, have different brains by the time they are born because of their
different experiences within the womb. During the first year of life, half of a baby’s
neurons die as their brain pathways and circuits take shape. Throughout childhood,
unnecessary neurons continue to be pruned and the connections between the
remaining neurons are fine-tuned. The brains of young children are highly adaptable
compared to adults. If half of a child’s brain is removed, the remaining half may take
over the functions that would have been performed by the other half - this is called
cortical plasticity. If an adult underwent the same operation, they would be severely
disabled. Similarly, it is much easier for a young child to learn to speak a new
language than for a middle aged person.
USE IT OR LOSE IT
The importance of a child’s environment on their emerging brain organisation has led to
many over-zealous parents frantically taking their children to zoos and museums to
make sure that they are stimulated enough. Most of this stems from work with rats,
which has shown that rats with “enriched” environments have more synaptic
connections between their neurons. But this ‘use it or lose it’ mentality may be an
exaggeration - a normal level of entertainment is probably quite enough to stimulate a
young child’s brain. Although adults brains are less flexible, experience can still change
neuronal connections. It has also been shown that mental stimulation increases and
stress decreases the survival and growth of brain cells. Physical exercise also appears
to help. So, should we all be doing brain exercises to form the right neuronal
connections and to help our brain cells survive? Before you start doing your daily half
hour routine of algebra, normal levels of stimulation may be enough, but it’s still a good
excuse to turn off the TV once in a while and use your brain actively!
We might have evolved big

brains so we could lie to
other people.
WHY BIG BRAINS?

Three million years ago our ancestors had brains a third of the size of our own. The
human brain is now 4.6 times larger than would be expected in an ape of our size. So
why did we evolve such big brains? Bigger brains gave us more computational power
and we may have evolved them to invent tools and language. We might also have
evolved them to outdo other humans - skills such as lying and recognising others who
lie would have been highly useful for survival in hunter-gatherer tribes. Another
question is how did we evolve such big brains? Brain cells use up ten times more
energy than the average cell, so how could we afford the energy for such big brains?
One suggestion is that the human gut size decreased in size to allow us to evolve our
big brains.
LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN
The cerebral hemispheres are divided in half into a right hemisphere and a left
hemisphere. Sensory information goes to the opposite hemisphere, so the right hand
sends information to the left hemisphere and the left hand to the right hemisphere.
Some brain functions are performed almost entirely by one hemisphere and this is
called lateralization. The left hemisphere is said to specialise in detailed analysis and
logic and language and the right hemisphere in holistic processing and nonverbal skills
such as face recognition and the appreciation of music. In America, you can buy self-
help books ‘to put yourself in touch with your more emotional and intuitive right
hemisphere’. But this is an oversimplification. Although some functions are lateralized,
the two hemispheres are in constant communication via a thick band of 200-250 million
nerve cells called the corpus callosum. The two hemispheres work as a team rather
than in isolation. Also, lateralization is not the same in everyone. In 95% of right-
handed people and 60% of left-handed people the left hemisphere is dominant for
language, but some people use both hemispheres for language or are right hemisphere
dominant.
Is there a difference
between male and
female brains?
GIRL BRAIN BOY BRAIN

Male brains are, on average, approximately 10 percent larger than female brains. But,
don’t worry girls, your brains contain more cells in certain areas and brain size is a
reflection of body size as well as intelligence (an elephant’s brain weighs 6 Kg). There
has been much research into differences between male and female performance on
different tasks and how this may relate to brain organisation. Women perform
marginally better on tests with words (could explain why men are worse at
communicating!) and men are slightly better at spatial skills (could explain why women
can’t map read!). But researchers have found few meaningful differences between the
male and female brain - there are much larger differences between individuals
regardless of gender.
BRAIN BOXES
So what do all the different parts of the brain do? People have always tried to pin down
different functions to different areas of the brain. Much has been found out using
patients who have brain damage to a small area of brain. By seeing what it is that the
patients cannot do, we can try to predict what this area is doing in a healthy brain.
Damage to just a small area can have profound effects on a person (this disproves the
popular myth that we only use 10% of our brains!) For example, a patient with damage
to the amygdala (a specific part of the cortex) ceases to perceive emotions properly in
themself and in others and one such patient could not understand why other people
found soap operas of any interest! So, we can deduce that the amygdala is important
for emotion. But this approach is tricky because many different brain areas can be
involved in specific tasks.
Drugs working in
the brain.
DRUGS IN THE BRAIN

Many drugs work because they are similar chemicals to neurotransmitters and so are
able to fit into their receptors (see Brain cells) or prevent the breakdown of
neurotransmitters. In 1973, neuroscientists discovered that the brain has receptors for
opiods (such as morphine and heroin) and these are located in the areas of the brain
important for breathing, pain and emotions. Nobody knew why we have these receptors
in the brain until endorphins were discovered. These are the brains own opiods and are
released in times of pain or stress. Commonly used drugs such as caffeine and alcohol
also affect the brain. Alcohol acts on the same receptors as some anaesthetics and
caffeine acts on multiple sites in the brain. Knowing about how neurotransmitters work
in the brain and where the different types of receptor are located helps in the design of
drugs to treat specific diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.

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by Ellen Poliakoff and Sally Bee Illustrations by Serena Korda

Adolescents may behave the

We might have evolved big

WHY BIG BRAINS?

GIRL BRAIN BOY BRAIN

DRUGS IN THE BRAIN

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