Where does strange perception come from?

We have many questions about incredible things but few know that most of these phenomena come from our own brains.

Decipher the strange mystery of the human brain

A few quotes from scientist Rita Carter's book will give us the answer.

Why are women more emotional than men? Why does the pain arm predict a heart attack? Is it true that someone said that they saw a fairy? . This is just one of the questions answered in a new book about the brain.

The author of the book is Rita Carter, a leading scientist and medical author. The book provides insights into brain activity related to incredible things; at the same time explain our behavior and behavior.

Our brain is shrinking

At birth we have had enough brain cells but along with growing up, new brain cells complete the link. During the growth phase, there are thousands of new links happening every day in the brain.

The adult brain weighs about 1.4kg and contains 100 billion neurons.(Artwork: wordpress)

As the age reaches adulthood, the rate at which the nerve cells link slows down and the process takes place for the rest of the life.

We often think that the brain will constantly generate neurons, but on the contrary, when it reaches adulthood, the number of neurons begins to decrease and the links degenerate, causing the brain to shrink.

At the age of 20, the brain volume decreases by an average of 1 gram in a year, until 90, our brain loses 5% - 10% of its original volume.

This also changes the shape of the brain. The grooves in the brain expand and affect the ability of nerve cells to bind and form disorder and some deformities in the brain.

Alcohol causes brain shrinkage. However, daily exercise can increase brain volume to help maintain the health of the elderly brain.

It takes half a second to feel real

Half a second after stimulation occurs, the feeling is due to the subconscious, so it is actually an illusion . However, we often do not realize this.

For example, when we stumble, we feel pain immediately. This direct feeling is actually a hallucination formed on the mechanism of memory stimulation of the brain. Remembering this memory we feel pain faster but actually half a second later sensory nerves give us a real feeling.

Lack of sugar is harmful to the brain

Glucose is the only food in the brain and brain that is the most vulnerable organ in the body. Although it accounts for only 2% of body weight, the brain consumes 20% of the body's glucose.

(Photo: Mobilenative)

Glucose from carbohydrates will be transferred to the brain. The brain consumes 420 calories a day - about 1/15 calories in the daily diet.

Because the brain cannot store glucose, it needs an available supply. If the brain does not receive enough oxygen and glucose, the irreversible damage will occur in just 10 minutes. Thus, we need to quickly rescue those who stop beating heart within 10 minutes so that blood can supply oxygen and glucose to the brain.

We can control pain

How much you react to pain is based on cingulate area - a part of the big groove around the top of the brain.

People can develop the ability to soothe activities in this region by learning to change their attention from pain stimuli to create effective pain relief.

Burn patients experience pain relief in a cool environment - this distracts the brain's attention from pain.

Why do horror movies make us so frightened?

Brain cells are activated when we move or when someone moves. This means that we imitate unconsciously other people's actions and therefore, share their experiences .

Drew Barrymore's horror in the movie Scream

These reflected neurons also allow us to know the feelings of others without thinking about it.

Reflecting on neurons is one of the most significant neurological discoveries in recent years.

When we see someone do something in the brain, we are also doing that - for example, when watching someone run, a part of the brain related to leg movement is activated. And when we see a person expressing emotion, the area of ​​the brain associated with the emotion is also active, just like the person's emotions pass on to us.

Reflecting emotions is considered the basis of empathy. People with autism often lack the empathy of neurotic reflection that is less active.

Nerves reflect the explanation of how quickly the emotions come when watching horror movies - we are afraid of ourselves, we are afraid.

Why does a heart attack cause pain in the hand?

Although there is no link to a heart attack, pain in the arm is a common sign that the heart is having problems. It is a form of pain signaling. This occurs when nerves from the region receive multiple stimuli such as skin and nerves from areas that receive less stimulation such as the organ inside the body, entering into a place in the spinal cord.

The brain often receives data in areas that receive a lot of stimulation so misunderstands the location of the pain.

For example, in a heart attack, pain signals from the heart converge with signals from the hand and go into the spinal cord. The brain often understands it's pain in the hand rather than the heart.

Are women more emotional?

There are some differences in function and brain structure between men and women.

The human brain is divided into two hemispheres to do different tasks. They are linked by the bottle callosum , a thick strip of nerve cell chains (about 300 million fibers) that carries information between the two hemispheres.

Women are very emotional.(Artwork: idigitalemotion)

This cell range in women is slightly larger in men - this means that the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere are better linked.

This explains why women are more emotional, it also makes emotions easier to turn up in thoughts or words.

When doing a complicated task, women use both hemispheres while men use hemispheres that are more suitable - physical or emotional to handle that task.

To check the activity of the bottle callosum, try the following method: Close your eyes and spread your hands, palms facing up. Let someone touch one of your fingers on one hand. Using the index finger of this hand try to touch the corresponding finger on your other hand.

If the information is properly transmitted between the two hemispheres, you can do this without opening your eyes.

We never forget everything

Our memory is distributed throughout the brain, so even if part of the memory is lost, other parts remain.

The benefit of such a distributed information system is that the long-term memory is somewhat indestructible. If memory is kept in a single area, the damage of this area such as stroke or head injury will completely destroy the memory.

Trauma or brain degeneration will nibble on the memory but rarely destroy it completely - we can forget someone's name but still remember their faces.

Memory is formed by a group of mutually stimulating neurons. When recalling something, we recreate memory by reactivating the neural models generated and coding into memory in the first experience.

Why are there a few people who never stop grieving?

Losing a loved one is difficult, but most of us recover after a while. But for about 10-20% of the deceased's family, the pain goes on and it's called ' complex grief '.

A study using brain scans found that in such people, the area reminiscent of the deceased is activated in the brain along with reward, joy and addiction, which shows pain prolonged may form addiction.

Do we have someone else's hand?

Some people have hands that no longer move according to their will. The hand seems to move on its own accord, like it belongs to another person. This is like the case in the 1964 film Dr Strangelove , this doctor's right hand tried to kill him.

TS Strangelove (actor Peter Sellers) is fighting his own death hand

Hand disorder syndrome occurs because the abnormality of the brain area sends signals to the muscles. These regions restrict signal interference sent to the body but in this syndrome, they neglect to take action beyond conscious control.

What creates desire?

The brain releases an addictive substance that creates a happy emotion, which is a reward when we have just performed essential functions for species survival, such as eating or reproducing.

The high sugar diet increases these reward signals, so the more sweet you eat, the more desires you have. This can overcome self-regulation and lead to addiction.

This is similar between mothers and their children. Brain scans show when a woman sees a picture of a smiling child, the reward system in this woman's brain is powerful. Photos of other children produce much weaker reactions.

Why do you sometimes see a familiar scene?

The familiar feeling (déjà vu) is characterized by an intense and sudden feeling of familiarity and feeling that you have experienced a similar moment before.

This case is explained that the memory of a similar past experience is stimulated but not fully reproduced; So the brain is misleading, it is familiar.

The feeling of alienation (jamais vu) is when we are in a situation that should be familiar but seem strange. You may suddenly realize that your home is not familiar or in an instant, not realizing that the person approaching is someone you already know.

This is because the activity of recognizing by emotional data is uneven, it often causes forgetting of familiar experiences.

Is a fairy or just a brain inhibitor?

Supernatural observation ability is very different in cultures. In the past, people often said that seeing first but today has more information about seeing aliens. However, even if he saw anything supernatural, it only had a very normal explanation.

The truth of seeing fairy is actually very mundane.(Illustration)

For example, claims abducted by aliens seem to be more frequent when the magnetic effects of solar radiation are high. The hypothesis is that solar radiation causes small inhibitions to sensitive people and creates hallucinations.

Seeing ghosts may be due to these small inhibitions in the temporal lobe - a part of the brain involved in emotions such as hearing, language and memory.

The problem in this area can create strange effects on observation such as feeling trance, a terrifying fear or the feeling of an invisible presence.

Out-of-body experiences such as near-death feeling - relate to poor performance of the apex lobe, the brain region that controls consciousness about space and time.

What makes people religious?

Religious beliefs and skepticism are controlled by parts of the brain that work with emotions , not reason.

When a religious person thinks about his or her religion, this activates the part of the brain that processes reward, emotion and taste.

For skeptics, religion is in charge because the part of the brain that generates emotions rejects it. This brain region also creates a disgusting feeling when one sees something that cannot be swallowed.

Why is this picture fooling the brain?

What do you see in this picture?

The brain has the rules that it applies to the input so that it can quickly make sense. If we hear a sound at the same time as seeing the mouth movement, we assume that sound is spoken by the mouth. However, the best guess can be wrong.

What is strange happens when we look at a semantic picture, like the picture above. Entering information into the brain is the same but what we see for the first time may be different from someone else's perspective.

It is impossible to see which form is mainly, the brain tries to observe again. We can see two images (glass or two faces) but we may not recognize both at the same time.

Learn language for a long time

Fluency in two languages, especially from a young age, increases cognitive skills and can also protect us against the onset of dementia and age-related cognitive decline .

The reason for this may be because speaking a second language helps create more connections between nerve cells.

Studies show that adults who are fluent in two languages ​​have a dense gray area, especially in the part of the brain that controls language and communication skills. This extra thickness is most noticeable in people who learn a second language before the age of five.

Einstein's genius secret

Most brains are the same, but there are small differences. Einstein's brain was found to be wider than usual and had no grooves throughout the brain region involving mathematics and spatial analysis.

Therefore, brain cell communication is much easier because it is not linked over a distance. Does this have given Einstein a superior mathematical talent?