During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of John Medina’s Brain Rules, “Wiring” chapter. According to Medina, what does he mean by wiring? Is it fixed or changing? What leads to it taking place?
ENG1101 D340 English Composition I, SPR2015
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I enjoyed reading this chapter, because it was interesting to know that out of the millions and trillions of people on this earth that we all have different brains. I definitely did not need to read this chapter to know that we all are different, but I never knew even identical twins had different brains. A part in the book I found fascinating where they did the experiment on the twins and had them watch Halle Berry’s Cat woman at the same time and got different results from their brains, even thought they had one of the twins look at a magazine cover that had the actress on the cover prior to having them watch the movie, even so their reactions would still have not been the same. I also enjoyed the Jennifer Aniston neuron project that was entertaining knowing that you could show a person a million different things and their brain will only react to what it wants or something it recalls. I always figured that everyone’s brain was wired differently but reading about it was fun too.
Medina’s Brain Rules, Wiring chapter is very intriguing. Why? It speaks about the way the brain cells are connected to enable us to think, to learn, to react to people or things in life and, to experience new things. I never thought about the kind of impact the brain would have when learning new things. According to this Wiring chapter, every brain is wired differently and simple pieces of information can physically alters the structure of our neurons. Moreover, the physical changes result in the functional organization and reorganization of the brain, which means that the brain is constantly learning new things, so the brain is constantly rewiring itself. As an example, you can wire or rewire your brain by playing musical instrument or sports.
Reading John Medina’s Brain Rules, “Wiring” chapter make me feel like being in a Psychology class. In this chapter, Medina again show his appreciation for the brain and argues that our brain changes while we are learning. According to Medina, by wiring we develop at different rates. However, we don’t know yet how the is the brain choosing to wires itself. Also, the wiring depends in our experiences while we are alive meaning that the brain is always in motion. Moreover, I think he means that our brain is like the evolution of a place. In other words, our neurons and neurotransmitters reproduce changing overtime into a more complex form of our brain and muscles. In my mind, conscious awareness is what leads to it taking place.
In this chapter Medina speaks about wiring, wiring which defines as how our brains develop at different rates but, we yet to know how the brain wires itself. The Brain never stops processing information and sending signals to our bodies, even while we are sleeping our brain is telling our body to keep us breathing, and our heart beating. On top of that we dream and those are also works of our brain. Our brain tends to “evolve” everyday with the surroundings, sports, music, etc. you can easily wire and rewire your brain.
This chapter has a lot of anatomy terminology and describes the work of nerve cells, DNA, neurons, etc. in the human’s brain.
Also it describes how molecules are functioning in the body.
The brain is constantly learning things, so the brain constantly rewiring itself. When neurons learn (getting new information), they swell, sway, and split.
As Medina said in this chapter, they break connections in one spot, glide over to a nearby region, and form connections with their new neighbors. Some of neurons stay put and strengthening their electrical connections, by that they increase the efficiency of information transfer. It is the Principe of wiring of neurons. It is freaky to imagine how they are moving in the brain while receiving the information.
This chapter was a little bit confusing for me even though the professor himself explained to us during the wiring presentation I still don’t fully understand the whole wiring deal. But that didn’t stop me from writing this summary and sharing what I thought was interesting on this chapter. A point Medina made through the chapter is that you can show a person a million options and the person would only respond to the one he/she wants. I see this happening a lot in my job. I work at retail and like every business we have to make our best effort to sale and reach the money goal for the day and a lot of times I show customers a lot if options and most of the times the options I give them are better than the options they are choosing but since a person only reacts to what they want, the costumers always gets what they think it’s cool.
This was a very interesting chapter to read. I have learned that not two people on this earth have the same brain. When you do or learn something, the brain physically changes what it looks like. It is rewiring itself. The grading system of todays’ schools is based on age, which can be unfair for some people. Regions is developing at different rates in different people. The brain on schoolchildren can develop whit the same difference of rates as their bodies. This is what John Medina thinks is bad about today’s school system. That we ignore our differences, and wrongly assume that everyone’s brain is the same.
What John Medina means by wiring is that when you learn something new, the neurons in your brain swell up, detach from one another and reattach on different ends, this being the “wiring” aspect. Extremely confusing chapter thus far. Nit even John Medina himself was capable of really giving us definitions, explanations or the true science behind the neurons acting the way they do. To me the Jennifer Aniston Neuron” and the teachers expecting their students to be able to read at a certain age for enrollment didn’t make sense. After doing the Presentation on this chapter, I sorta got a few of my questions answered but not all.
Our brain is the most sophisticated information transfer system on earth. Whatever we are doing either talking to somebody or sitting quiet at that moment inside our brain bits of neurons are moving around like reptiles. All that so you can remember. The brain acts like a muscle: The more activity you do the larger and complex it becomes. Everybody has a different brain. Michael Jorden for example was the ESPN’s greatest athlete back in 20th century but when he decided to quit basketball and play baseball he failed miserably. He played only one season during which he posted the league’s worst record. His performance was so poor he couldn’t even qualify for triple-A farm team. On the other hand legend Ken Griffey Jr. was burning up the baseball who is still the sixth on the all-time home runs list. The difference between these two players their brain communicated better with certain muscles than others. Everybody gets their brain wired differently even in the presence of the same event. No two people’s brain store the same information in the same way in the same place. When we learn something our brains wiring changes and what you learn throughout your life changes what your brain physically looks like.
In this chapter, John Medina explains the interconnections that neurons form in the human’s brain when a person performs any kind of activity that stimulate the brain such as sports or play music. Also, Medina mentions in detail the structure of neurons, in other words, all the components that constituted the neuron such as the dendrites, the axon and the terminals and how the communicate to each other by electric pulses. Another matter related to the topic is that by doing certain activities that stimulates can increase at about 15 – 30 % the mass of the brain and this was proved by one of the experiment that Vicenzo Malacarne made by training some birds. Then, he studied their brains and realizes that the mass increased considerably. The same principle can apply when a person is constantly activate by doing certain activities such as play the violin which leads with the same result compare to the birds. In addition, the author explains that each brain is different when we talk about road maps which basically are that some areas of the brain bright when there is an activity of the neurons and it can be change depending of each person which means the same spot will not bright for different individuals. For example, if some sees the picture of Jennifer Aniston an area of the brain will activates and this is because the brain analyses the picture and try to recognize Jennifer Aniston’s face. On the other hand, if another person observes the same picture, another are of that person’s brain will bright which can be different for the previous person. In summary, the brain is constantly in motion specially its neurons when they are constantly stimulates by any kind of activity and it makes new connections which lead to the brain to grow up.
John Medina’s third chapter from Brain rules called “Wiring” was fascinating for me. I always have been attracted on how the brain works. When Medina talks about wiring, I think he refers to the structure of our brains, how is all connected and the routes that our neurons create by themselves when we are learning something new. To know that what you learn in life changes physically the way your brain looks like was new for me. I have been studying about all the interesting things in the body for many years and never heard an information like this. As neurons learn, they swell, sway and split. They break connection in one spot, glide over to a nearby region, and form connections with their new neighbors. Eric Kandel was the one who showed that every new thing you experience in your life is going to effect a new wiring in your brain. The more activity you do, the larger and more complex the brain can become. Reading this chapter, I figured out the big amount of different intelligences that exist worldwide, not hundreds or thousands, billions of them. Everybody has different brains, not even twins could have the same one because every brain is wired differently. In addition, a study showed that most people have a “Jennifer Aniston” neuron, every time a person looks at her; a neuron in their heads is stimulated.
Justin Echevarria
When John Medina was talking about “wiring” the brain as an evolution process of learning I agreed with him. I am more in favor with science rather than religious beliefs that is just my opinion I don’t mean for anyone to feel offended. The wiring process of the brain allows us to have a better understanding and interpret things differently or the same as one another. Still till this day every human brain wires itself in a unique way due to everyones daily life being different, and it’ll continue for as long as someone lives. This is an interesting fact because it brought up the question when does the brain begin to program on its own and when does someone truly develop understanding. Wiring is a brain processor and I have a high belief it is caused by evolution.
In John Medina’s “Wiring” chapter, he was a little hard to understand. I learned that the “wires” of our brains are the neurons. When we learn something new, our neurons swell up and they start to connect to other neurons. Also, not two people have the same brain, not even identical twins. Basically those are the main ideas that stayed with me. Also, wiring is a process that happens on its own.
In the fourth chapter of Brain Rules by John Medina he speaks about wiring. According to Medina, wiring is what takes place in the brain while learning new things. Wiring is an ongoing change that takes place in the Brain when piecing together different thoughts, images, and ideas together. Sometimes the strand is complete and other times its split when a concept is not complete in our minds. Every time we learn something new or make room for more knowledge our brain rewires itself. This makes all the same types of ideas coincide with one another and develops our brain to be stronger.