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ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY
HUMANIST FAMILY BRAIN STUDY
10 BRAIN FACTS TO MEMORIZE
April 15, 2018
10 BRAIN FACTS TO MEMORIZE
The human capacity to be curious is the primary motivation you need to want to learn the 10 most important brain facts in order to prosper in the future.
When you learn these specific ten brain facts, you will be able to control your mind's mental force, which is your ability to reason and control your emotions by yourself.
Fundamentally, you need to know the ten brain facts in order to organize your consciousness, which is scientifically defined as your fine-tuned self-organized memories.
Your ability to reason is the most important mental function you can use to organize your perceptions into fresh new memories.
However, if you decide not to learn about these particular ten brain facts, then it does not matter how many other brain facts you know. You will be deprived of the brain knowledge that could have profound optimized your brainpower.
The neuronal connections ("wiring") of your brain and nervous system are what connect your brain to the rest of your body and make communication among the parts possible. This wiring, which makes possible the circulation of electro-chemical signals throughout your body, also makes possible your ability to adapt to all kinds of changes in the physical environment and changes in your social life. In short, your brain's neuroplasticity is produced by the neuronal wiring that connects your brain and body.
Brain scientists have named all the physical features of the neuronal connections (neuronal pathways and nerve tracts) in your brain and body your connectome.
Your own connectome is the largest neuronal network, which connects your brain and body together by means of many other smaller interactive neuronal circuits.
Later, you will learn how wonderfully intricate the interactive 900 billion synaptic connections of your 85-100 billion neurons are at the isotopic level where quantum effects rule.
When you think of the fact that your conscious mind is the ultimate product of about 14 billion years since the origin of planet Earth and about 4 million years of the evolution by descent of human prototypes on planet Earth, you can begin to feel just how awesome human life is.
And just as profoundly, scientists have discovered through studying fossils that two fish gills led to human vocal chords and small rodent-like mammals were precursers to humans. Those tiny mammals were scampering around the feet of dinosaurs in the Jurassic period more than 60 million years ago. In short, the human brain has been evolving for about 3-4 million years and is continuing to evolve to provide your brain's complexity and your mind's ability to reason. And, it is still evolving today!
What you need to do now is to learn how to manage your magnificent mind!
If you learn to accept the following ten brain facts, as they are presented in the scientific linguistic context of this website, your new core brain knowledge will provide the rational foundation for your future growth as an altruistic humanistic thinker who can control your own emotions and influence others to think well and do good:
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YOUR THOUGHTS CAN CONTROL
YOUR FEELINGS IN A PREDICTABLE
AND PRODUCTIVE WAY!
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When you learn the new brain vocabulary, which describes your consciousness in the language of the new empirical brain knowledge, your mind's ability to reason will be able to organize your consciousness under both ordinary events and emergency conditions.
The new brain knowledge will help you predict the future and therefore be prepared to thrive in it.
In addition, you will be able to use your altruistic humanistic values to create purpose and meaning in your life and conversely to avoid useless social anxieties, which can weaken your human spirit and destroy crucial parts of your brain's structures.
You can start by asking yourself the following three important questions: "How does my brain work?" and "What is my brain's evolutionary function?" and "How does culture shape my consciousness and self-awareness?"
Because of the courageous work done by brain scientists during the 19th and 20th centuries, and especially because of what they have achieved so far during the 21st century, major new discoveries have been made concerning the true facts about your brain's structures and the true causes of your mind's functions.
Now because of the new brain knowledge, there are better medical treatments and therapy techniques than ever before in human history.
Now there are also better medical diagnoses for brain disorders and brain injuries as well as better rehabilitation and more effective recovery for people with damaged brains than ever before in history. Very soon you will be able to apply the new brain knowledge to control your mind's mental functions involving your emotional responses to everything including your reactions to emergency threats.
For example, there are now reliable therapeutic interventions for the victims of strokes, brain tumors, and traumatic brain injuries due to concussions caused by sports and bomb blast injuries as well as many other serious brain diseases and disorders.
And since there are also many false claims in advertisements in the mass media and social media about how your brain can be optimized by taking pills or doing mental tasks to enhance brainpower and memory performance, it is important that you use your own critical thinking skills and critical reading skills to understand the new scientific perspective about the functions of your mind that you can actually control and the best way you can do it.
If you want to have healthy brain structures and understand your mind's amazing functions, it is essential that you learn to eat, sleep, exercise, and relax appropriately at all ages, because good blood circulation is required for good brain health.
More corroborating details can be found in the following two excellent books about the way you can make yourself more resilient:
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YOUR BRAIN ON FOOD:
how chemicals control
your thoughts and feelings
by Gary L. Wenk
Oxford University Press,
2010, 2015 2nd edition (227 pages)
and
THE HUNGRY BRAIN:
outsmarting the instincts
that make us overeat
by Stephan J. Guyenet with
illustrations by Shizuka N. Aoki
Flatiron Books, 2017 (291 pages)
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FIRST FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[1] Human consciousness (self-awareness) is caused by the global connectivity of the neuronal pathways and all of the signaling processes in your brain and the rest of your body.
Approximately 900 trillion synapses attach your 100 billion neurons to each other and also to all of your internal organs, glands, and muscles.
The cell bodies of neurons start action potential spikes that flow from neuron to neuron through trillions of synaptic clefts (the gaps between neurons) to connect your brain and nervous system in a vast biochemical web.
The vesicles of your synapses release sodium or potassium ions depending upon what the potentiation (electrochemical potential) is across the gaps at the synapse terminals.
Your dendrite terminals and synaptic terminals typically attach to your muscles, internal organs, and many glands.
SECOND FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[2] The physical structure of your cerebrum is the intellectual resource center of your life. It is the newest region of your brain to have evolved during the last few hundred thousand years.
It contains four lobes (four sections), which include your frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, and occipital lobe on both sides of your brain.
Thus your cerebrum consists of eight sections, since your brain is divided into two cerebral hemispheres, commonly referred to as your "left brain" and your "right brain." They typically have predictably unique separate functions.
Distinct skin-like membranes separate the eight sections of your cerebrum, with numerous neuronal pathways connecting all eight of the sections for dynamic interactive communication.
THIRD FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[3] The physical structure of your prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the executive decision-maker of your life.
Your PFC is located in the two frontal lobes at the front of your cerebrum just behind your forehead with neuronal connections to all other major areas in your brain.
The notable major areas include brain function activators associated with; [1] your conscious willpower in your cerebrum; [2] your feelings in your limbic system; and [3] your unconscious behavior in your combined cerebellum and brainstem. The last area is referred to as your "cerebellum-brainstem complex," since together your cerebellum and brainstem control your involuntary heartbeat and breathing.
FOURTH FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[4] The essential components of your self-awareness are two small clumps of neurons located in the front of your cerebrum.
They are each the size of a penny and are located above your eyes (about one inch under the skin) in front of the left hemisphere ("left brain") and the right hemisphere ("right brain") of your cerebrum.
In other words, the two neuron clusters are on the inside front of both prefrontal cortices (PFCs) of your divided cerebrum.
They are what activate the functions of your creative imagination and short-term memory system and working memory system.
These nerve clusters and neuronal pathways are all an indispensable part of your consciousness and self-awareness.
FIFTH FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[5] Your ability to think and make decisions depends upon having healthy neuronal pathways inside the two parts of your anterior cingulate gyrus.
This means that your neurons, which produce the biochemical currents (electro-chemical signals), and your glial cells, which form the structure of your neuronal pathways, must be healthy so the biochemical currents can be conducted (moved) rapidly and efficiently through your two cingulate pathways.
Those cingulate pathways are located on the insides of your divided brain (two hemispheres), on both the left side and the right side of your two cerebral hemispheres.
In addition, your glial cells coat the axons of most of your neurons with a white fatty substance known as myeline sheaths.
The myelination process nourishes, insulates, and provides the structure for your neurons.
Among other functions, they protect neurons from toxic chemicals floating in cerebral fluids.
The myelination process allows action potential spikes or biochemical currents to flow (move) more quickly than they would without the protective coating.
Historically, your glial cells were called white matter and your neurons were called gray matter. Those were their colors when the tissues were exposed to air after brain injuries due to accidents or after being smitten in combat during war.
That is why ancient people knew that neurons and glial brain cells were different kinds of brain tissue, but they did not know what their mental functions were until brain science discovered the true facts during the past two centuries.
SIXTH FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[6] The long-term memory consolidation process is activated by four triggers in the specialized long-term memory circuits located in the two major parts of your hippocampus.
The physical structure of your hippocampus, contains four separate circuit activators, which trigger your semantic, episodic, autobiographic, and procedural memory (muscle memory) areas.
These four memory areas in your hippocampus have the vital evolutionary role of keeping you alive.
Their location on the two sides of your hippocampus (one in each hemisphere) are both nestled safely at the bottom of your limbic system in the most protected part of your brain.
The neuronal connection between your prefrontal cortex and your hippocampus is vulnerable to being blocked (obstructed) as you age.
Damage to the structure of the two neuronal pathways can cause many disabling dementias as well as the usually fatal Alzheimer's disease.
Therefore, it is imperative that you understand how important your long-term memory system is for having a comprehensible and enduring sensory self (sense-of-self) and a socially acceptable personality (self-identity).
Brain Image Link #1:
TAP, CLICK or SWIPE
HYPERLINK or PURPLE BOX
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YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS DEPENDS
UPON HAVING A HEALTHY CONNECTION
BETWEEN YOUR PREFRONTAL
CORTEX AND HIPPOCAMPUS
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Your working memory directs all of your conscious executive brain functions, since it is neuronally wired to control the functions of the other major parts of your brain.
Those physical structures include your cerebrum, limbic system, and brainstem-cerebellum complex. Your brainstem and cerebellum together are the oldest "reptilian" parts of your continuously evolving brain.
SEVENTH FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[7] Your brain's neuroplasticity (plasticity process) gives you the ability to control your body and also to learn new words (such as the new brain vocabulary).
This dynamic adaptive process of neuroplasticity can expand your long-term memory system, by adding words and images to your memory system, in the two parts of your hippocampus located in both hemispheres.
This process of memory consolidation converts stem cells into new memory molecules in your hippocampus.
Your long-term memory system can store memories both instinctually (implicitly) and consciously (intentionally).
Your long-term memory contains old facts and images about things and events in your past and also the new thoughts and feelings that you have chosen to remember because of their relevance to your daily life.
For your brain to control your bodily movements, your prefrontal cortex had to learn how to connect and control all of the neuronal signals in your neuronal pathways in both your sensory cortex and your motor cortex consciously and also unconsciously.
Through many thousands of experiences over many years, you learned the essential habits of living. All you have ever learned has been reinforced, both consciously (deliberately) and unconsciously (tacitly) many times since you were a toddler.
At each of the predictable developmental physical growth stages of your body, your brain's parts were also changing in their connectivity, especially during the adolescent pruning process, as well as more predictable adult learning experiences that cause many mental changes due to the plasticity process.
Remarkably, there are only two parts of your brain that are able to create new neuron cells daily. They are your olfactory glands (smell organs) and your hippocampus (long-term memory consolidation system.)
These two particular examples of the incredible neuroplasticity process are known as neurogenesis, since new neuron brain cells are created in those brain tissue areas throughout your life.
New neurons are essential for the sensory function of your olfactory glands and also for the memory function of your hippocampus.
EIGHTH FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[8] For you to be conscious of yourself (self-aware), your prefrontal cortex must be connected to the language module in your left temporal lobe and also to your hippocampus at the bottom of your limbic system and your amygdala at the front of your limbic system.
Brain Image Link #2:
TAP, CLICK or SWIPE
HYPERLINK or PURPLE BOX
In addition, for you to be conscious of yourself as a passionate and conscientious human being with the freedom to choose your own thoughts and actions, your prefrontal cortex must be connected to your reticular activating formation located in your brainstem.
Also, simultaneously, your prefrontal cortex must be connected to the two triggers of the two vital unconscious brain functions that regulate your breathing (lungs) and your heartbeat (heart) located in your brainstem-cerebellum complex so your heart will be pumping oxygenated blood into your brain at all times to keep your brain alive.
The constant neuronal signaling that activates your lungs and heart muscle ensures that freshly oxygenated blood will continuously flow into and throughout your brain at all times.
NINTH FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[9] If you learn the new brain knowledge and educate yourself so you will have the confidence necessary to develop proper self-management skills, the source of your thoughts, which is your cerebral cortex, can control the source of your feelings, which is your limbic system.
This supreme brain fact is derived from the new brain knowledge about the flexibility of your working memory and its mechanism of causation, which is the vast global connectivity of all of the neuronal pathways in your connectome (your brain and nervous system that are inextricably intertwined.) This is a revolutionary and transformative idea since it means that you are totally in charge of your own thoughts and feelings and actions. Bluntly, it means that there is a sensory self but no spiritual soul. What historically has usually been called "spiritual" is now known scientifically as being "emotional."
No matter whether or not you give yourself full credit for your brain's phenomenal mind (mental force), it exists for you to exploit (or to let others exploit you by fooling you) for as long as you are alive.
This explanation of your brain's primary functions has been verified with scientific certainty by raw human experience and exquisite pure methodical experimentation hundreds of thousands of times during the past few years. Hundreds of thousands of fMRI brain scans have proven the existence of a vastly complicated biochemical communication system, made up of your brain and nervous system, which is biologically driven and psychologically controlled, if you have the proper practical brain knowledge.
By measuring the blood flow and the sugar levels inside the brain with the most powerful new block spectrum optical fluorescent microscopes, the communication system of your brain has finally been revealed to be activated by its own physical biological parts, including your brain's mind (mental force).
To repeat for clarification, the source of your thoughts is the biochemical activity in your cerebral cortex. And the source of your feelings is the biochemical activity in your limbic system, assuming that all of the other systems in your brain and the rest of your body are functioning normally.
To summarize with even more clarity, your cognitive resources are a function of your cerebrum while your decision making ability is a function of your prefrontal cortex in collaboration with the long-term memory circuits and amygdala emotional circuits in your limbic system, which competes with your prefrontal cortex to control your memories and emotions.
TENTH FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN FACT:
[10] When the neurons in the pathways of the two anterior cingulate gyrus get entangled or interrupted, neuronal signals from the brain's prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus get blocked or damaged.
This blockage or destruction of neurons can cause the usually fatal Alzheimer's disease and other less severe dementias.
In addition, Alzheimer's disease can be caused by tumors as well as the buildup of amyloid plaque caused by toxic proteins or tao tangles or cellular debris such as prions that can make holes in brains.
When the cingulate pathways, which connect the prefrontal cortex to the long-term memory circuits, are interrupted due to tumors or toxic chemicals or traumatic brain injuries, such as concussions from sports injuries or bomb blasts, there is usually permanent damage to a person's brain resulting in mental disorders.
The mental problems can compromise a person's sense-of-self (self-identity and personality) to one degree or another forever.
Damage to the neuronal signals (biochemical current) between the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus causes the dramatic loss of self-awareness or the loss of the sense of time or the loss of facial recognition skills or the loss of all three essential survival functions even though some awareness of nonpersonal routine situations may not be affected.
Sadly, that is why most Alzheimer's patients cannot recognize the faces of their spouses or their friends or remember what they were doing or where they were a short time before.
A classic example in neuroscience is the study described in the book by Oliver Sachs in the following information box:
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THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE
FOR A HAT AND
OTHER CLINICAL TALES
by Oliver Sacks
Simon & Schuster, 1987 (256 pages)
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Also the documentary film on CNN Sunday night (June 28, 2015), honoring the great guitar player and singer Glen Campbell, depicted the terrible impact Alzheimer's can have on a person and their family and entire social network.
In addition, a brain research study published in the neuroscience journal, The Neuron, in July 2015 reported that loss of memory can also be caused by biochemical imbalances in the medial temporal lobe, which can destroy the protein bridges that connect memories to each other.
Therefore, any disruptions of neuronal signals along the cingulate pathways or in the medial temporal lobe can damage the operation of either your working memory's random access system or your long-term memory's consolidation system or both.
To restate this alarming fact, Alzheimer's disease and the other dementias are usually caused by damaged cingulate pathways, which cannot relay neuronal signals (biochemical current) back and forth efficiently anymore.
This means that the neuronal signals (impulses of information) from the brain's executive control mechanism in the prefrontal cortex cannot reach the brain's long-term memory consolidation system in the hippocampus.
Likewise, old memories stored in the long-term memory system cannot get to the conscious level of working memory resources in the prefrontal cortex.
With no cure available to stop Alzheimer's disease, it is essential that you become aware of the specific scientific ways that you can avoid or delay the onset of permanent brain damage due to Alzheimer's or the many other kinds of dementias.
Also it is imperative that you plan to stay out of situations that are likely to cause traumatic brain disorders or injuries that block neuronal signals from communicating between your working memory resources and your long-term memory system.
The short-term value of some thrilling popular extreme sporting activities or over-eating or under-exercising or the lack of sleep are all too dangerous to experience when your brain health is so important for a long and happy productive lifetime of meaningful experiences and relationships.
Printable Form:
THE 10 BRAIN FACTS
THE 10 BRAIN FACTS QUIZ
WITH QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
SELF-QUIZ PART 1:
To reinforce the ten fundamental functional brain facts for storage in your long-term memory's consolidation system, which is located in your hippocampus, you can begin to think about the 10 ANSWERS to the following 10 QUESTIONS.
Think about the ANSWERS until they are easy to recall with your working memory, which is located in your prefrontal cortex or PFC.
Each time you reinforce the associations between the questions and answers, you will be forwarding new signals to the new neurons that will be generated by the ionic action in your memory consolidation system that is located in your long-term memory.
HINT: Discover the pattern of the questions for quick feedback by knowing that the 10 answers are in reverse order of the 10 questions. The arrangement of the 10 questions and answers can help you spend more time reinforcing the connections because all of the data is in front of you with easy access to both the questions and the answers.
(1) What neuronal pathways can get entangled or obstructed and cause the fatal Alzheimer's disease or other dementias by blocking neuronal signaling from the brain's prefrontal cortex and other parts of the cerebrum?
(2) What brain structure controls your feelings if you know the proper knowledge about the way your brain functions?
(3) For you to be aware of your self and able to think, your prefrontal cortex must be connected to what communication module in your left temporal lobe and also your hippocampus at the bottom of your limbic system in both hemispheres?
(4) What process gives you the ability to learn new words and to expand your neuronal database of facts and ideas about the meaning of life?
(5) In what brain structure are the four triggers of your long-term memory resources, which include the semantic, episodic, autobiographic, and procedural (or muscle) memory circuits?
(6) What is inside your anterior cingulate gyrus that connect your prefrontal cortex and hippocampus to make possible your ability to think and make decisions?
(7) What are the two central neuronal control hubs, located at the front of your cerebrum's two prefrontal cortices (about one inch behind your forehead) that provide your sense of self or self-identity?
(8) What brain structure, located in the forward part of your cerebrum, is the executive decision-maker of your life?
(9) What is the major brain structure that is the largest and the newest to have evolved and that has become the intellectual control center of human life?
(10) What is the result of the global connectivity of all the neuronal pathways and all the neuronal signaling processes in your brain and nervous system?
SELF-QUIZ PART 2:
Note: To remember the ten fundamental brain facts for future quick recall and use, you can review the following list of TEN BRAIN FACTS (ten declarative statements).
HINT: To enhance the memorization process, you can print the pdf form at the end of the questions below. However, actually writing the names of the ten brain facts on paper or copying the two entire lists of questions and answers by handwriting on blank pieces of paper can improve the efficiency of your multi-sensory immersion learning process (writing to remember) and speed the production of new memory molecules in your hippocampus.
[1] Your consciousness and self-awareness are the result of the global connectivity of all of the neuronal pathways and all of the neuronal signaling processes in your brain and nervous system.
[2] The physical structure of your cerebrum is the largest and newest region of your brain to have evolved and it has become the intellectual control center of human life.
[3] The physical structure of your prefrontal cortex, located at the forward part of your cerebrum, is the decision-maker of your life.
[4] The two central neuronal control hubs, located at the front of your cerebrum's two prefrontal cortices (about one inch behind your forehead) provide your sense of self or self-identity.
[5] Your ability to think and make decisions depends upon having healthy neuronal pathways inside your anterior cingulate gyrus that connect your prefrontal cortex and hippocampus.
[6] The four triggers of your long-term memory resources, which are located in the physical structure of your hippocampus, are the semantic, episodic, autobiographic, and procedural (or muscle) memory circuits.
[7] Your brain's neuroplasticity gives you the ability to learn new words and to expand your neuronal database of facts and ideas about the meaning of life every day.
[8] For you to be aware of your self and able to think, your prefrontal cortex must be connected to the language module in your left temporal lobe and also your hippocampus at the bottom of your limbic system in both hemispheres.
[9] The source of your thoughts, which is your cerebral cortex, can control the source of your feelings, which is your limbic system, with the proper knowledge about the way your brain functions.
[10] When the neurons in the pathways of the anterior cingulate gyrus get entangled or obstructed, neuronal signaling from the prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus can become blocked and cause the fatal Alzheimer's disease or other dementias.
These ten fundamental brain facts can become a solid intellectual foundation for organizing your mind's ability to reason.
You can master the complete sequence of the 10 brain facts, and also the 15 brain functions described in the Humanist Family Brain Study file and in the 15 brain flash cards, by using this same spaced-repetition method of learning (memorization) along with the flash cards.
In addition, there will be more details and references about the scientific understanding of the structures or your brain and the functions of your mind, which you can purchase from the Alphabetical Brain™ App very soon.
Printable Form:
10 BRAIN FACTS QUIZ
instantly return to:
ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™
VOCABULARY INDEX
produced by
Infinite Interactive Ideas™
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