During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary in your notebook on your reading from BrainFacts.org’s “Neuromyths” post. In your response, indicate if you had been taught or heard people repeat these neuromyths.
Before our class on Monday, type your summary into a word processor and save a copy on your own media. Then, copy-and-paste what you wrote into a comment added to this blog post.
Testing
Zahirah Hutton
ENG 1101
2/4/15
Summary:
It’s totally funny because most of the Neuromyths mentioned in the reading I’ve actually heard before. Especially the one that states we as humans only use 10% of our brain, and to find out that was a myth I was heartbroken. I grew up believing that to be true but being that I know the truth now I can bust someone else’s bubble. One thing I didn’t know was that your brain can be classified into both a left & right side that totally was new to me. During this reading I realized peoples precetion has a way if changing the truth, all the things I thought were true about the brain came from a third person source. This is why I grew up believing what I believed in, it was someone’s preception of what they thought was true. As a kid you remember the things instilled in you without questioning it and you’ll find that as a kid if you did question what you were taught most times the adults don’t even know why this is what they say. I know that last sentence was a little more a self reflection but that’s what I got from the reading besides the obvious information. Other than that I knew the others were myths but is was one I wish was kinda true, the one pertaining to music really stuck out to me. Myself personally love to listen to music of all sorts especially if I’m studying, reading, writing doesn’t matter so it would have been nice if in fact listening to classical music makes you smarter. I bet if that were true most teenage students would be scholars.
The truth behind common brain myths is a very entertaining read. In other words, my first reaction was that I remember some of this sayings by people and now I know if they were right or wrong. Each myth is really fun and it makes you want to read more. For example, “Playing games keeps your brain young”. However, the truth is the it won’t enhance overall brain function. Another myth is that “The bigger your brain, the smarter you are” and my reaction was that I always hear people saying this especially myself. In addition, is not a surprise that the bigger an animal’s body, the bigger its brain might be. Though, as it is said having a bigger brain does not guarantee more cognitive power. Finally, people are either “right-brained” or “left-brained” is a very funny and interesting myth. We use both right and left hemispheres of our brain to perform everyday task unless an entire hemisphere is completely removed. The brain is the body’s control center, managing just about everything we do.
How the Brain Works: “Myths and Facts”
As I was reading some myths about “How the brain works,” I’ve came across some valuable information. Well, there is an old saying, “The bigger your brain, the smarter you are!” I always believed that saying until I read the “Truth” about our brain. According to Neuromyths, having a bigger brain does not guarantee more cognitive power. Even though many believe humans are the smartest species on the planet. The human brain differ from other animals and weigh about three pounds. As for the other animals, the bigger their body, the bigger their brains may be. However, scientists believe that the brain of the tree shrew accounts for 10 percent of its body mass while the human brain accounts for roughly two percent of body mass. At the end, most scientists agree that we owe our unique capabilities to the complexity of the cerebral cortex.
For many years, I’ve heard many misconceptions about the brain and to be honest, I’d actually believed most of them, until I learned the truth. The first one was, “People are either right-brained or left-brained.” Now, that’s a funny misconception, I say this because it’s as though you are saying that “People are either right-handed or left-handed.” Nevertheless, BrainFacts.org states that you use both the right and left hemispheres of your brain to perform everyday task, regardless of personality or skill set. BrainFacts.org explains that Although certain functions, such as speech production, handedness, and facial recognition, tend to be dominated by one side of the brain in the great majority of people, most task require parallel input from both hemispheres. A second misconception was, “Brain damage is always permanent.” This reminds me of what my fellow Guyanese would say,” Don’t let people hit you in your head because it will leave you stupid!” my point is, not because you might have been knocked in the head means that you would become stupid. BrainFacts.org argues that in some instances, the brain can repair itself. Whether a person recovers from a brain injury depends on the location and severity of the damage. As in regards to the other funny myths of the brain, they have been no conclusive, scientific evidences that they are true.
In conclusion, now that you know that you use all of your brain and not 10 percent, you should use 100 percent of your brain to examine all myths that misleads you and start looking for the facts.
Justin Echevarria
“Nueromyth” it’s self explanatory what this is based on, if you understand the name. Nuero-myth, is just myths about neurons which neurons are located in the brain. Some myths that were shown on the website links i had already heard of them previously as i was growing up, but i believed and thought some were actual facts. For example, the human brain only using 10 percent of their brain, this i thought was an actual fact but there has been evidence from fMRI and MRIs that show different locations of the brain being used for different objectives. Overall the Nueromyth reading was appealing to my interest due to myth that were proven to be a true or false statement.
Luis Dela Cruz
2/7/2015
ENG1101
Honestly i have always been curious about the human brain, and how the size determent your knowledge. As a kid i always believed that people with big heads are likely to be better at math and reading than other, however by reading Neuromyth i realized i was wrong because their animals with brains bigger than ours and man are still the smartest species on this planet, also by doing my own research i found out that one of the smartest animals are the ants, the have a unique skilled mind to survive and to protect it self, also gathering food and building shelters and strangely i read that bigger ants turn smaller ants into slave which i found very interesting by the way their brains are incredibly small. Drinking alcoholic drinks always kills brain cells, this one caught my attention because i come from a family of drinkers and my uncle drink too much but yet his memories skill are incredibly good, meaning his brain cells are functional. You only use 10 percent of your brain. even tho the proof for this one is right their, i kind off have my dough’s, i don’t believe that we are using all are brain capabilities because and correct me if I’m wrong/ we have this part of are brain called Pineal gland that we don’t use, but read that if we ever get to a point in time where we do use it we are able to surpass are brain abilities …
Reading the Neuromyths, make me wonder what else we have been lied about. I always grew up thinking that we only use a small percentage of the brain, and that human beings can unlock more and more and obtain abilities that most humans can not achieve. I think the whole concept of drugs vanish l causing holes in your brain is to scare off kids into never touching drugs, personally I think that’s a smart idea it’ll prevent the future generation clean (hopefully). The alcohol one can also be something about kids, but of course drinking too much of alcohol will damage you, too much of anything is never good that’s why its always good to stay sober. You always hear a certain football player had brain damage and that his brain won’t recover, I always heard this all the time. In biology I learned that the human body always repairs itself (if not severely damaged) if a head trauma isn’t severe I doubt you’ll be paralyzed or have any motor problems. The playing games keeps your brain young,I have a grandmother that plays crossword puzzles and puzzle based games and she actually has a very good memory and is mentally fit, but her brain is not young.
Shen Le Cheng
I’ve been curious about how the brain function works ever since my high school teacher told us a little bit about brains in class. From reading the Neuromyths, I learned that a bigger brain does not guarantee more cognitive power. The human cerebral cortex has 16billion neurons. These neurons and their connections are supported by specialized cells called Glia, which are also believed to play an important role in human cognition. To improve our cognitive skills, we can do so by learning how to play an instrument. We use our brain every day, but we only use a certain part of it. Our brain is not all activated all at once, brain is at work for any given activity, depending on what function is needed. Also by doing Aerobic exercise, it can help us lessen the rate of tissue loss during aging.
I found the Neuromyths reading very interesting. My favorite myth was “Listening to classical music makes you smarter.”. In high school right before a big test there was a group of girls who always went to listen to classical music while studying. Besides making me giggle, this myth corrected my own thinking and helped me realize that the brain does nothing new while listening to classical music, but can possibly make you less smart. Secondly, I personally appreciated the myth “The bigger the brain the smarter you are.” The more space you have or the bigger your head doesn’t mean that you’re using all of the brain power you possibly can.
Neuromyths was very interesting to read bacause I have heard many of these myths before. One myth that was espascially interesting was “Drinking alcohol drinks always kills brain cells”. This have been said so many times that almost believed it to be true, although this study shows that moderate amounts of alcohol do not kill brain cells. Alcohol threatens your brain because of its addictive qualities and its ability to alter brain function, in small doses it can actually have a positive effect on the brain. However years of chronic abuse will kill braincells.
Another myth that I found interesting was “People are either “right-brained” or “left-brained”. Sometimes when I browse Facebook I tend to see quizes where you can find out if you are left- or right-brained, I never believed this to be true, so it wasinteresting to read that you use both hemispheres of your brain to perform everyday tasks although certain functions, such as speech production, handedness, and facial recognition, tend to be dominated by one side of the brain in the great majority of people.
After reading and analyzing “Neuromyths” I realized that we often believe in things that are not true just because they are repeated many times which make humans think that the fact is true even if it is not and it happens with everything we believe and that’s why people see life from different perspective. This happens with the neuromyths, people have been talking about them for a long time so they might think that are true. I liked to read this because now I’m very clear with these concepts.
The first neuromyth described on the text is very common because we use to make our own conclusions and thinking that the bigger is our brain, the smarter we are is a smart comment but is false because having a bigger brain does not guarantee to be smarter, the humans are considered smarter than animals but some of them have bigger brains than humans so that’s false. The myth that I liked the most was “Listening to classical music makes you smarter” personally I’ve thinking that this is true my whole life because I’ve listened that too many times, but actually, the text explains very well that listening to that kind of music has not been shown to improve intelligence in children or adults but learning to play an instrument has been shown to enhance cognitive skills in the long term. Another fact that was a surprise for me is that playing games keeps your brain young, I definitely though that doing puzzles and those kind of things could make you smarter but it isn’t but they could make you improve specific skills as is explained on the text.
From now on, all of us should research more than once when we listen to some new information just to confirm if it is true, you never know. Reading about neuromyths was very helpful for me because now I have a better knowledge about this and the next time I listen to one of those myths I won’t be one of those people that believe in wrong information.
As I read Neuromyths, I discovered interesting facts about the brain. One thing that caught my attention was that people aren’t left or right-brained. This was interesting to me because I was always told right handed people think with their right brain or that the right side is more dominant. To find that this was a myth was shocking because I basically lived by this information. Also, I found it interesting that moderate consumption of alcohol does not kill brain cells. I always thought that alcohol and drugs, such as marijuana, kill brain cells. I’ve been misguided by some of these myths my whole life and never knew it.
Neuromyths notes
Summary
“The story of humans is the story of ideas that shine light into the dark corners.” – Jill Tarter
My attention was caught while I was reading the “neuromyths” notes because it certainly informed of many misconceptions. Also, it was interesting how those misconceptions can actually affects people believes, moreover, people usually end up that those misconceptions are real facts. However, science explains in an objective and clears way the real facts and put some light into darkness. One of my favorites “neuromyths” notes was about how listening to classical music can make the person partially smart. Nevertheless, recent studies found out that actually listening to classical music just increase the cognitive power just for short period of time about 15 minutes. Another example was about that vaccines can cause autism, even thought, there were no real scientific evidence about this predicament. It seems it all started when at the same time that was vaccines season were also a raise of autism. Finally, it’s been said that drinking alcohols can kill brain cells which is truth if a person consume it excessively and without precaution. However, certain amount of alcohols can be healthy for the body like 2 cups of wine can prevent heart attacks. At the end, it is just matter of seeking the truth and learns more through science.
I never knew that so many people actually thought these things. After reading Neuromyths, it made me want to research much further to see what has caused people to think that many of these statements were actually factual. There were a few problems i had with a few of the statements but one that stood out the most to me was “Drinking alcoholic drinks always kills brain cells”. The statement alone is worded incorrectly because if anyone knows, that having a glass or a moderate amount of alcohol would not kill brain cells. But, with further reading i learned that alcohol threatens your brain because of its addictive qualities and ability to alter brain function. I knew that it could possibly alter the brains’ functions because of the state of intoxication in which a person can enter if they drink too much but never knew it could be possible for it to shrink cells and be healthful at the same time. Very interesting reading this go round.
That article is very useful and I discovered that I truly believed in couple of that facts myself! Its always great to have scientific prove of “world-known” facts that shows real and proven statistic or point. Each of 10 example perfectly described in that article. The fact that I paid more attention was about “right-brained” and “left-brained”. I always believed it that theory and this article has a great point and evidence that there is no such a thing as “right” or “left” brained people. And its just great to realize that even though brain can’t grow bigger but we can exercise it and develop it.