Saturday, March 21, 2009

that fascinating organ

Evidently, there's some new brain research (dee, did you read about this?). They (the proverbial "they") have mapped the brains of a bunch of twins as they were... thinking. Here's one picture of the "strings" connecting different parts of the brain as they get connected via the thought process.

Some researchers from UCLA did a study using a bunch of twins, some identical and some fraternal, in order to test how much of brain speed is due to genetics. I read about it here, on NPR's website. What I don't understand is how do they factor in the environmental impact?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A million years later and here I am. No, I hadn't heard about this, but I agree with you...environment plays such a mega role in everything. I did get a chance to at least meander over to the NPR site...the photos are gorgeous! You know, scientists totally blow their wad over multicolored imaging. I bet the folks who created those beauties have the same in poster prints over their beds.

(i wish i had something more intelligent to add, but i really haven't had time to delve into the study. but thanks for alerting me! geez, i bet i no longer have one single intact string sending a signal. more like a game of hot potato passing along information in my brain.)