The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind by A. K. Pradeep Page B
Authors: A. K. Pradeep
Tags: Psychology, Non-Fiction
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fold, and fuse to form the hollow neural tube. This primitive structure grows and evolves in truly spectacular fashion, with the fetal brain at times producing a quarter of a million new neurons every day . In addition to neurons, the mature nervous system contains glial cells, which clean up leftover chemical transmitters, guide migrating neurons, and serve as the infamous blood/brain barrier, which prevents toxins in the blood from killing brain tissue.
Neurons collect together to form each of the various brain structures, acquire specific ways of transmitting nerve messages, and learn unique ways to process and control interactions with the environment, from motor tasks (like throwing a ball) to complex memory tasks (like guiding a submarine).
After its spectacular period of growth in the fetus, the neural network is pared back to create a more efficient system. Neurons are removed when they lose their battle with other neurons to receive life-sustaining chemical signals produced by the target tissues. So the same cells that draw them forward, in many cases, then deprive them of life. This pruning process explains why children actually have more brain cells than adults.
Those extra brain cells also form too many connections at first. In humans and other primates, children have twice the number of connections between neurons that adults have. For example, the neural connections between the two eyes and the brain initially overlap, but then migrate to separate territories devoted to one eye or the other. The connections that are active and generating electrical currents survive, whereas those neurons with little or no activity fade away. Thus, the circuits of the adult brain are formed, at least in part, by sculpting away incorrect or unused connections to leave only the correct ones, in the most elemental example of “use it or lose it.”
What’s left is a precisely elaborated adult network of 100 billion neurons capable of body movement, perception, emotion, and thought.
Once the neurons reach their final location in the brain, they must make the proper connections for a particular function to occur, such as vision or hearing. They do this through their axons. These thin appendages can stretch out a thousand times longer than the cell body from which they arise, from one side of the brain to the other. The journey of most axons ends when they P1: OTA/XYZ
P2: ABC
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JWBT296-Pradeep
June 5, 2010
13:54
Printer Name: Courier Westford, Westford, MA
The Brain 101
37
meet thicker appendages, called dendrites, of other neurons. Enlargements of the axon’s tip, called growth cones, actively explore the environment as they seek out their precise destination.
Once axons reach their targets, they form synapses, which permit electric signals in the axon to jump to the next cell, where they can either provoke or prevent the generation of a new signal.
Each neuron receives thousands of synapses, and the astounding information-processing power of the brain works by turning on or off the huge number of electric signals that pass through the synapses.
The human brain is what makes us human.
Every Neuron Has a Target
As they grow and begin to migrate throughout the body, each neuron makes connections at a precise point with a specific target. Each neuron somehow knows to bypass all other points and other targets, and arrives at a destination that is predetermined to fit that neuron and that neuron alone.
Once in place in its network, the neuron generates an action potential (an electrical current) along the axon in response to stimuli. The current may be tiny (from a few microvolts), fast (up to 100 meters a second), or powerful and permanent. Once the cell body has summed all the inputs that excite or inhibit an electrical current, the neuron fires off its action potential. Once fired, it goes ! The action potential carries the same voltage all the way to its target destination. These action potentials give us great
Neurons collect together to form each of the various brain structures, acquire specific ways of transmitting nerve messages, and learn unique ways to process and control interactions with the environment, from motor tasks (like throwing a ball) to complex memory tasks (like guiding a submarine).
After its spectacular period of growth in the fetus, the neural network is pared back to create a more efficient system. Neurons are removed when they lose their battle with other neurons to receive life-sustaining chemical signals produced by the target tissues. So the same cells that draw them forward, in many cases, then deprive them of life. This pruning process explains why children actually have more brain cells than adults.
Those extra brain cells also form too many connections at first. In humans and other primates, children have twice the number of connections between neurons that adults have. For example, the neural connections between the two eyes and the brain initially overlap, but then migrate to separate territories devoted to one eye or the other. The connections that are active and generating electrical currents survive, whereas those neurons with little or no activity fade away. Thus, the circuits of the adult brain are formed, at least in part, by sculpting away incorrect or unused connections to leave only the correct ones, in the most elemental example of “use it or lose it.”
What’s left is a precisely elaborated adult network of 100 billion neurons capable of body movement, perception, emotion, and thought.
Once the neurons reach their final location in the brain, they must make the proper connections for a particular function to occur, such as vision or hearing. They do this through their axons. These thin appendages can stretch out a thousand times longer than the cell body from which they arise, from one side of the brain to the other. The journey of most axons ends when they P1: OTA/XYZ
P2: ABC
c04
JWBT296-Pradeep
June 5, 2010
13:54
Printer Name: Courier Westford, Westford, MA
The Brain 101
37
meet thicker appendages, called dendrites, of other neurons. Enlargements of the axon’s tip, called growth cones, actively explore the environment as they seek out their precise destination.
Once axons reach their targets, they form synapses, which permit electric signals in the axon to jump to the next cell, where they can either provoke or prevent the generation of a new signal.
Each neuron receives thousands of synapses, and the astounding information-processing power of the brain works by turning on or off the huge number of electric signals that pass through the synapses.
The human brain is what makes us human.
Every Neuron Has a Target
As they grow and begin to migrate throughout the body, each neuron makes connections at a precise point with a specific target. Each neuron somehow knows to bypass all other points and other targets, and arrives at a destination that is predetermined to fit that neuron and that neuron alone.
Once in place in its network, the neuron generates an action potential (an electrical current) along the axon in response to stimuli. The current may be tiny (from a few microvolts), fast (up to 100 meters a second), or powerful and permanent. Once the cell body has summed all the inputs that excite or inhibit an electrical current, the neuron fires off its action potential. Once fired, it goes ! The action potential carries the same voltage all the way to its target destination. These action potentials give us great
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