Reading: “Neuromyths”

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.

18 thoughts on “Reading: “Neuromyths”

  1. momo phelps

    Mohammad A.Diakite 02/04/15

    10 minutes writing (Neuromyths)
    The Neuromyths’ post stated that the brain has many different functions. These functions can be described by many different myths. The first myth was about the size of your brain and how it affects you. Some people think that the bigger your brain is, the smarter you are. According to research by scientists, the human is the smartest living organism on earth, even though our brain is small compared to some animals like the elephants. Other myths stated that drugs, alcohol and vaccines can have negative effects on our brain if we misuse or abuse them. I have learned that people who abuse drugs and alcohol are damaging their brain.

  2. Nicole J Lopez

    Many People spread myths about the brain that they believe are true. Since these myths are so wide spread, not many people realize they are false. Myths like “the bigger your brain the smarter you are” and ” humans only use 10% of their brain.” I have heard many of these myths and believed that some of them were true as well. Specifically, I thought the “humans can use only 10% of their brain” and “drinking kills your brain cells” myth were true, and was surprised to find that they were, in fact, just myths. My guess is that since the brain is a complex organ, people would believe anything that sounds “smart” without checking the sources or doing further research. Prior knowledge about the brain can easily tell which are myths, while the rest would require information from a knowledgeable source to know whether or not it is true.

  3. S. Spencer

    While reading the ten myths on brainfacts.org of Neuromyths, I was surprised with some of the myths that are believed to be true but really they are false. Not many people know the real truth of these myths well, because they are not told. The myth that really caught my attention that everyone seem to believe is that “Drinking Alcoholic Drinks Always Kills Brain Cells”. This is false because the site actually states that certain amounts of alcohol do not kill your brain cells but it still does threaten your brain. Alcohol can really affect the way your brain functions and can shrink brain cells. I really had no clue that alcohol can actually shrink your brain cells rather than kill it, I’ve been hearing different for the past few years. Maybe the people who said that it kills your brain cells said it to scare you out of drinking it so that it can be avoided.

  4. Elizabeth910

    Neuromyths are false myths that people hear and think they are true. Scientist look further into these myths and have proven majority of them wrong. I personally believe neuromyths help you to think deeper into what society really thinks about certain myths. Sometimes we might agree with these myths and other times we will disagree with them. For example, on BrainFacts.org there is one neuromyth that said “Listen to classical music makes you smarter”. People will start to think it is true because they constantly hear it and they will might even start to try it without even knowing if it is true or false . However, scientist will conduct an experiment on it and show proof that it is actually true or false.

  5. kim

    Reading “Neuromyths”

    Society had been impact by myths for a very long time. I grew up hearing them from my grandparents and family members. There are people that believe in many myths. For example, “Listening to classical music makes you smarter,” many mothers actually spend money on buying Mozart and Beethoven cd’s for their toddlers. Believing this classic music will help with children brain development. According to the reading ‘’Neuromyths,’’ this myth is false, research had not proven that classic music help improve brain development I strongly recommend mothers to read Neuromyths. There was a myth that impacted my life growing up. The myth “Playing games will keep brain young’ ’ever since I was little my grandma use to tell me that playing crossword puzzles will help me become smarter and keep my brain young. By reading “Neuromyths” had informed that this myth was false.” Neuromyths” helps me clear up some wrong information. I personally enjoyed reading” Neuromyths”, it was very informative.

  6. Shawn Williams

    The Neuromyths article was very informative. A lot of the myths I heard before. I cannot think of one that I haven’t heard. It cleared up a lot of misinformation. I think you get caught up with and start believing myths because it makes sense to our reasoning and logic,and it’s not to far fetched. I always thought elephants were smarter than us,because of their size and so automatically they had to have the biggest brain. But when I found out that their brain is actually smaller, I didn’t know what to think. Once I received the information about brain myths,it cleared up the myth I thought was true. So it was cool to read about the brain and get some facts straight.

  7. PRM

    In this week’s reading, “Neuromyths,” it talks about the top 10 misconceptions of the brain and how we, the general public, believe they have some truth to them.
    Some of the myths to name- “ People are either left-brained or right-brained, drug use makes holes in the brain and the bigger your brain the smarter you are,”-were all new to me. I was relieved to have read the myths I believed were true are just that, myths.
    “Brain damage is always permanent.” I didn’t know the brain was an organ that repaired its self. I was under the impression that all brain damage was irreversible but now thinking about it, I may have confused it with being brain dead.
    “Vaccines cause autism.” This controversial myth has been debated amongst the parent and medical community. Growing up, this misconception had a presence in the household because of my Mom and my sister- whose daughter was diagnosed with autism. They believed that the substance in the vaccines hindered early development. My niece, now 11, functions like a “normal kid” with some social development issues. Personally, I do not believe vaccines cause autism. Based on my personal health conquests, I believe in western medicine.
    In conclusion, the reading “Neuromyths” has enlightened my beliefs of the brain and clarified some illusions.

  8. Jo

    Neuromyths explains some if not all myths about the human brain. It answers the misconception of theories revolving the truth of the brain’s functionality. One particular mythic I’ve heard the most about was that we only use 10 percent of our brain. I myself believed on this myth before I read the article, I was astonished to find that I was wrong and there are certain parts of the brain that only activate if we do a particular activity. According to the article, it was proven in an MRI that show brain areas are at work for a certain activity depending on the function is needed. In a way our brains work like a computer, there are points when a computer need to use more of its processing power for certain function than others.

  9. Amir

    Many interesting facts about our brains are being discovered all the time. And most of the time, we believe everything we hear about it because it “make sense”. However, Neuromyth from brainfacts.org revealed ten myths about our brains that denies some of the facts we know. One in particular, “The bigger your brain, the smarter you are”, we have all claimed that bigger the brain in terms of size, correlates how smart a species is. Unfortunately, this is false, because if that were to be the case, whales would have been the smartest mammal on earth with seven times it’s brain mass. Because our brains have complex region called “cerebral cortex”, it is held responsible for our “awareness, planning and reasoning”. Without the cerebral cortex, the neurons would not generate the brain’s ability to develop and respond, thus making humans a dominant thinkers in this earth.
    This fact certainly baffled me and opened my mind about how the size of the brains does not really matter. I have always knew of this fact when I was young, but never gotten a logical proof or a hypothesis that supported its claim. Brainfacts has definitely given me the answers that I have always asked for; with thorough research, and scientific explanation.

  10. connorkempf

    Your brain is crucial to your life. It is how you live think and improve your life. Bring some cells have many myths with them.people say that the brain can’t be injured by intoxicating liquors (alcohol) and/or drugs. Another common misconception is people bigger brains tend to process more intellectual thoughts then a person without a brain of comparable size. Your entire brain is used throughout every day life. People think that vaccinations may affect your brain, not true, but may affect other regions of the body. Anything that you put into your body has the potential to affect any and all functions of the human body itself. The brain itself is ever evolving, the neural pathways constantly changing as thoughts and memories change. If you were to physically damage the brain, it might at the possibility of repairing itself to restore at least some function. The brain has a certain degree of plasticity, which allows the brain to vary itself accordingly. There is also a disagreement on how the brain may be improved. Games or music has been theorized to positively affect the brain and its function. The article says that games do not help brain, although there is evidence available on the World Wide Web that argues the opposite. How does one keep the brain useful? I theorize that the mind can be young by simply using your head. Just the simple act of thinking may help to improve the function of the brain. The mind is all you have in the end. The mind is how you control your body, how you store information as memories, and also the medium through which you think and also to express these thoughts. Your mind has limits which we don’t know exist. Exactly what these limits are remains a question. It could take your whole life to figure out how to use your head. The human mind can perform astronomically better than it does now, the question should be how do we use our mind to better society, ourselves, and how do we innovate to allow the future to coexist with the past. Human life in comparison to the time since the creation of planet earth is relatively minuscule, it goes to show that human lives are like the blink of an eye. Your mind is how you can make an impact on today’s society and tomorrow’s. The mind itself is much theorized, no one really knows how the mind works or how to improve the mind, all we know is that we have a mind, we must use it.

  11. Angel

    Reading NueroMyths contained a lot of information about the brain that had to deal with myths that exist concerning the brain. Many myths about our brain. The film Lucy had a myth which was that human beings only used 10 percent of their brain. NueroMyths stated that even though only parts of our brain are active at once, depending on the function of what is needed different parts of our brain would be put to use. A myth i had believed was that our brain couldn’t make new cells. Upon reading Nueromyths I learned that our brain constantly generates new cells and remains adaptable a we you age. Also that most of our brain cells were created before we’re born. These debunks proved that many misconceptions of our brain can come from home or even a classroom. Growing up I heard the myth about humans only using 10 percent of their brain. But reading NeuroMyths taught me about many other myths that I had no idea about. This goes to show you that not everything you hear may be true.

  12. Michelle V.

    In the neuromyths readings, they spoke about myths surrounding the brain. Many are commonly heard but worded in a different way that could be accepted as truths. An example is the brain damage is always permanent.This could be seen as a truth because it is expected to have some kind of effect. All society knows about the brain is the common knowledge of the brain (how the brain control different parts of your body, how the brain looks like and how it works). So many would assume yes any wound to the brain could be fatal. However, that is not necessarily true it depends on the type of wound and where the wound has hit the brain. The researchers in the reading say that with therapy and time the brain can fix itself. Another example is people are either “right-brained” or “left-brained.” This is a misconception because I was taught a bit about the brain I could see what the researchers were talking about the brain function being mostly controlled by a specific side of the brain but I could also see that both the left and the right are needed to do an activity. So someone who does not really understand the brain might come to this conclusion of you are either left or right brained because that side is more active than the other. In conclusion, there are many myths surrounding the brain and that is because a majority of society does not know above the average knowledge of the brain thus leading to assumptions being made; we aren’t all trying to become a doctor.

  13. Beaton

    I found a lot of interesting facts about the functions of the brain in the reading Neuromyths. There are ten misconceptions of the brain, some of those misconceptions enlightened me. A myth I haven’t heard of is “the bigger your brain, the smarter you are.” the reading in fact states that the myth is false, in actuality, the tree shrew has a bigger brain than humans. The human brain roughly weighs 3 pounds and accounts for roughly two percent of our body mass. Another myth is “drug use make holes in your brain. The reading states that only physical trauma can create holes in your brain. After reading all ten Neuromyths, I realized how important our brain is and how to take care of it. Eating healthy is a factor in keeping your brain functional during aging. According to the myth “playing games keeps your brain young”, exercising your body and eating a healthy diet maintains memory and general cognition later in life. Your brain is the most complex organ and the most used. I’ve learned that Keeping your brain healthy and persistently learning will be beneficial for your body and mind as you age.

  14. Moises

    Throughout the years there have been plenty of misconceptions about the human brain. Many believe we have the potential to gain superhuman skills if we were able to use 100% of our brain. Some believe taking certain drugs can cause holes in the brain or having a bigger brain means you’re smarter. Although some of these theories contain some truth to them, they are not completely right. One myth states that we use only 10% of our brain when in fact we use all of it denying the potential of superhuman abilities. Drugs can’t actually cause holes in your brain, only physical trauma can cause that and having a bigger brain does not make you smarter. Some of these theories have brought upon many new ideas and have even been expanded to ideas for movies. The myth about using 100% of your brain was used to make a recent movie called Lucy. It spoke about a female who took a certain drug that gradually gave her the ability to use all of her brain, starting from 10% to 100%. As the percentage of usage was raised she began to show signs of superhuman abilities such as telepathy and accelerated regenerative abilities. When she reached 100% she became and different entity entirely. The whole idea of the movie started to feel far-fetched but it was a good imaginative way to show what people believe the brain has the potential to do. As time progresses there will be more ideas about the human brain but time and time again science will prove it wrong.

  15. Hyone.Kim

    In this week’s reading, some of misconceptions about the human brain were introduced. While I read articles, I’ve find out the truth behind common brain myths. For instance, I’ve known for many years that human can only use 10 percent of their brain. There’s rumor about the scientific genius Albert Einstein, he used only 10 percent of his brain in his life. However, according to article, depend on what function is needed, several brain areas are at work for any given activity. Therefore, it is not make sense to measure our brain usage for one specific activity. Some of misconceptions are make sense, “Listening to classical music makes you smarter.” Or “Playing games keeps your brain young.” These two facts are effect on people’s habit for many years. Overall, it was very informative article.

  16. alejandroco

    This week’s reading, “Neuromyths” discusses ten misconceptions of the brain that people do not know and disproves them, while many still attempt them. A few that I’ve heard are that people are “right brained” or “left brained”, which is untrue, since we all use both halves of our respective brains. Another similar myth is we only use 10% of our brains. That is also untrue, as we use ALL of our own brains. Another myth is that drug use make holes in your brain. While it does have effects on it, drugs do not make holes in the brain. The last that I’ve heard is that listening to classical music makes you smarter , the article proves that it does not.

  17. Ayesha Javed

    The neuromyths posted on Brainfacts.org stated the effects of many different things on the brain which most of them I found to be false. One of the myth stated that “You only use 10 percent of your brain.” and the first thing that came up to my mind when I read that was one of the movies I saw “LUCY”. In that movie it was also shown that the brain is used only 10%, but by taking some drugs Lucy was able to access all her brain which I don’t think it’s true. Another myth stated that “Brain Damages are always permanent.”, and I am sure that isn’t true because I have seen many people recover from serious injuries. But they are myths and widely spread so they are just stories to tell and pass on. As much as we enjoy reading or listening to them from others, most of them are false.

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