The Human Brain

I chanced upon this article in the National Geographic which explains how human beings form memories, how they retain memories and why some people are blessed with eidetic memories while others have to scramble around in their respective neocortexes, looking for information which was allegedly stored there! What was this article going to be about? :)

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/memory/foer-text.html?fs=canyon

Anyway, the above article makes for good reading and here is my take on the human brain.

I have to yet come across as convoluted a thing as the human brain. It is a myriad jigsaw and the amount of material that is packed inside such a small volume (average of 1300cc) would raise envious eyebrows from any packaging industry. It is essentially a miracle of sorts, because housed inside this 1300cc "engine" are a hundred billion neurons, with each one of them being capable of forming  5 to 10 thousand synaptic connections with neurons around them. It is in this synaptic connections that information is retained. The hippocamus is responsible for making sure that the memories stick.

What intrigues and excites me is the formation of a memory from a visual, an auditory stimulus, or something as simple as the brushing of a feather across the skin. The complex procedure of conversion of something that we can "feel" into electrical signals which can be stored, is something even the most accomplished savants of neurology fret over. Computer memory is much simpler, in the sense that all information is stored as 1s and 0s. But how does one figure out how the human brain has simplified the storage of infinitely large amounts of information?

Human beings have accomplished many things, some of the more prominent ones being the conquering of the final frontier: space, the ability to reach places on this planet hitherto unthought of and the ability to communicate. What are all these if not the manifestation of the capabilities of the human brain? However, we are yet to discover the way in which our brain works. It is simply because of this reason that I am against all experiments related to cloning and the human genome. Figure out what you are made of before trying to duplicate yourself, is my advice to all scientists involved in this macabre initiative.

We all know what happens when we jump into a new project with full enthusiasm and half knowledge. The outcome is inevitably a disaster. Ergo, the duplication of human beings without a sincere study and understanding of the human brain is like making a duplicate computer, but messing up the processor in the process. We do not know how synaptic connections are formed; how can we then be sure that the duplication process may not destroy these connections? Or worse, what happens if new bridges are formed where they were none? What would be the implications of new synaptic bondages? Do we know the answers to these questions?

I am not claiming that I am the final authority on the brain. I am the most ignorant of fellows where the issue of the human body is concerned. The questions I have raised may already have been answered. But till such a time as this knowledge becomes public, it is hazardous to fiddle around with the human brain, or even the DNA for that matter. Agencies working for the "progress" of scientific knowledge in these areas zealously guard their research through IPR. I fail to understand how anyone can have a patent over a certain part of the genome or some part of the DNA. That is equivalent to each and every person claiming rights of ownership to some portion of air in the atmosphere as his/her own. In short, the idea is blatantly ridiculous! Instead of copyrighting, all the information about the human brain and even the human body should be made publicly available.

We have yet to decipher a lot about ourselves. Yet, there is an undying curiosity in human beings to look without rather than within. If we can understand the source of this curiosity, maybe all of us would be better human beings.

Amen to that!

/Radgovin

P. S. The very fact that my thoughts have strayed while writing this article stands testimony to the magical processes occurring in my brain. Who knows how many synaptic connections were formed, destroyed, strengthened or weakened during the fifteen minutes that I spent writing this article? Does somebody have an answer?