Let's Get Physical With Our Brains

For most of my life the best analogy that science had to offer about the brain was that by the time you were 35 or so everything your genes could give your brain was cemented into place.

And then that block of cement was basically dropped into a fast flowing river where time (and maybe chemicals) eroded your brain. And then, sometime later, you died.

Cheery, huh?

But for the last two decades especially researchers have grown less deterministic in their view about the human brain.

Increasingly, science is showing that brain cells and the connections between them continue to grow over time. But like muscles those cells and connectors can atrophy. And like muscles, neurons (brain cells), ganglia and synapses can be trained and even expanded.

How do you do that? Check my posting at my blog on informal learning called The Learner’s Guild for some real-world suggestions.