The amazing, connected brain
The NIH put out a fascinating post about mapping the connections between neurons through (looking up the right words …) axons and dendrites. You can literally see thought.
Every time we think, speak, or interact, or write a blog post, we are this image. Heck, maybe we should all be required to, like, wake up every morning for a month and look at an image of the nuclei of brain activity, and how each neuron is connected to billions (literally billions) of connections connecting our connected brains to a trillions layers in the … (one moment please; neuroscience words are hard) … anterior cingulate cortex.
A few years ago, I went to a medical provider who told me, ‘You are allowed to come to me with one single issue. No stacking.’ And then she gave me medical advice that 100% contra-indicated my secondary issue.
In 100 years (far fewer, hopefully), this mindset will be akin to bloodletting. Medical providers should be among the first to look at an image of the brain’s connections every morning, but let’s all agree to show them this image before they start treating us, shall we?
One single neuron has the capacity to form over a thousand connections. Billions or even trillions of these connections are firing in our brains all the time.
Now, conjure an image of a human you know. Same thing’s happening in their brain.
Now, think of the two of you having a conversation. Maybe disagreeing or having an argument. It’s a wonder our brains are able to connect with other brains at all. Much less love, respect, collaborate, or synchronize-swim with one another.
But we do. We do all the time. (Well, maybe not the synchronized swimming part.) This is how absolutely bonkers the research is. Research has shown that our breathing or our heart rates can sync up with others, but now it looks like brains can also sync up.
Part II
I write this blog to put my brain into Journalist Mode — which helps me understand the world around me in a more layered, complex way (heh; make more neuronal connections, perhaps?) — so here’s my takeaway of what I most want to understand from this article:
These collective electrical signals can be aligned to certain frequencies, much like a wave where the peak represents a spike in neural activity and a dip represents low neural activity. [Article: Scientists making people cooperate, do puzzles together rather than watch or do them separately, et al.] … Something unexpected occurred: Functional links appeared across people’s brains when they cooperated during certain tasks. In other words, different people’s neural oscillations aligned when they cooperated.
Although the idea isn’t mainstream yet, apparently, some neuroscientists are starting to suspect that consciousness doesn’t originate from one dot inside our brains, per se, as it arises from the connections itself.
One of the researchers, Tom Froese, goes a step beyond, and posits there’s some even freakier shit going on with the connections between our brains and other humans’ brains. I’m not emotionally, researchally or writingly ready to go there yet, but just that our brain’s electrical waves move on the same Hertz frequencies as other brains at all is mind-blowing.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, we were just starting to understand and accept the absolute bizarre notion that a coupla lemons or limes on a ship prevented scurvy, absolutely, 100%, no need to ever look back, one and done. It took a few decades, but we eventually discovered the third layers of how food made us healthy: vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fatty acids, et al.
It feels like we’re at a similar forefront of discovering how, to make a helpful analogy, um, … brain-lemons and neuroscience-limes are going to help us discover the third layer of how our brains operate, and what that means to not only creativity, but for being human and finding meaning. I believe this research will change everything — politics, psychology, medicine, education, urban planning, entertainment, sleep hygiene, advertising, social media, everything. I can safely say it’s pretty important to make sure we’re prepared.