Misconception about our Brain
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Oct 9, 2020
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brain-myth
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science
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About certain misconceptions about the brain, despite the advances in neuroscience.
Last updated
Dec 13, 2022 05:20 PM
Being wrong and having misconception about any particular field in science is normal and inevitable part of the scientific process. Scientists at any given point of time do their best with the tools they have, until new tools are discovered which helps them explore the field more deeply, broadly or precisely. As a result these new discoveries will help the scientists in updating their previous understanding of the field.
But more often, even with an updated knowledge base of a particular field, the old scientific beliefs persist and at times considered as the truth by the large masses.
Here are three of the most misunderstood understanding of our human brain.
Myth 1: Brain modularity
According to this myth we consider our brain as a complex yet modular machine. Where every part of the brain has its own allocated task to perform. An individual module for a vision, another for memory and a third for motor skills, when put together constitutes the brain as a whole.
But today with the advancement in science and technology especially in Brain Imaging, has lead to our understanding that the brain isn’t divided into individual modular components with dedicated functions. Instead the human brain is a massive network of neurons. These neurons combines and work together performing multiple jobs, not a single specific function.
In fact this is the reason why patients who seems to have suffered from Brain injury resulting in losing motor control of their legs or arms can be trained to regain their control through physiotherapy. This is also the reason why individuals with brain deformity since birth are able to lead a normal life, even with a major chunk of their brain missing, compared to a normal brain.
Pretty much everything that your brain creates, from sights and sounds to memories and emotions, involves your whole brain. Every neuron communicates with thousands of others at the same time.
Myth 2: Brain reactivity
Some believe that our brain reacts to events in the world. Brains, however don’t work by stimulus and response and instead our brain uses all its available information to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment. It takes into account all our previous experiences (our memory), our current situation, and the current state of our body and tries to make prediction almost constantly. If a guess turns out to be correct, then our brain has a head start, whereas if the guess is wrong, the brain can correct itself and hopefully learn to predict better next time.
Predicting and correcting is a more efficient way to run a system than constantly reacting in an uncertain world. An example would be when we are cycling, at every second our brain is trying to predict and correct our balance, speed and the direction in which we control our bicycle. This is how we are able to ride without falling and also course correct even in the presence of any external disturbances. This is also how we are able to predict the motion of the ball and accurately swing our bat at the right time in the right direction, when playing a match of cricket.
Myth 3: Brain Disease separation
This is where we believe that there is a clear dividing line between diseases of the body, such as cardiovascular disease, and diseases of the mind, such as depression. Every mental experience has physical causes, and physical changes in your body often have mental consequences, thanks to our predicting brain.
When there is something wrong in the functioning of our organs, for example our heart, brain tries to make us notice of it by making us feel a tightness in our chest. This is the brains way of making us aware that something is wrong with our body and due to the discomfort we are facing we are more likely to visit a cardiologist.
Similarly when we feel discomfort in the form of depression, its the brains way of saying that there is something wrong with our mental health and we must address it soon by having a visit to the psychiatrist. According to brain these two sensations are pretty much identical and is being triggered to attain the same result: making us aware that something is not right.
When thinking about the relationship between mind and body, its tempting to indulge in the myth that the mind is solely in the brain and body is separate. Under the hood, however, our brain creates our mind while it regulates the system of our body. That means the regulation of our body is itself part of our mind.
Reference: That is not how your brain works