Myths about the brain

YOUR brain is a 1.3kg organ in your head that holds all your thoughts and feelings, controls movements, and determines personality. Neuroscientists have been studying the brain for many years to try to understand its inner workings. But humans are complicated, and so are our brains — billions of neurons, of many different types, connected by trillions of synapses, all of them working together using a language that we don’t yet fully understand. Neuroscientists are researching the brain to understand the operation of the most complex machine we know. From this understanding will come better treatments for brain diseases. Researchers believe we’re beginning to gain insight into the workings of the brain’s billions of neurons and trillions of connections. Neuroscience is always making advances, in how we both understand the brain, and how we treat brain disorders. SOME COMMON BRAIN MYTHS AND THE FACTS BEHIND THEM:

You DON’T only use 10 per cent of your brain: In actual fact we use virtually all of our brain every day. By reading this article you are engaging your occipital and frontal lobes to see and comprehend, your hippocampus to remember, while your brainstem and cerebellum assist you in breathing and circulating blood.

A person is NOT right-brain or left-brain dominant:

Although the two hemispheres can sometimes have slightly different roles, there is no scientific evidence that your personality traits are determined by having a “dominant” hemisphere. You use both sides of your brain equally. Brain research has revealed that the two hemispheres of the brain are co-dependent and work together in complex processing. For example, the left hemisphere of right-handed people plays a more “dominant” role in fundamental language processing, but the right hemisphere may be more responsible for processing intonation. qbi.uq.edu.au