NO ROAD, NO trail can pen­e­trate this for­est. The long and del­i­cate branches of its trees lie every­where, chok­ing space with their exu­ber­ant growth. No sun­beam can fly a path tor­tu­ous enough to nav­i­gate the nar­row spaces between these entan­gled branches. All the trees of this dark for­est grew from 100 bil­lion seeds planted together. And, all in one day, every tree is des­tined to die.

This for­est is majes­tic, but also comic and even tragic. It is all of these things. Indeed, some­times I think it is every­thing. Every novel and every sym­phony, every cruel mur­der and every act of mercy, every love affair and every quar­rel, every joke and every sor­row — all these things come from the for­est. Read the rest of this entry »

We all have heard “Use It or Lose It”. Now, what is “It”? how does “it” work? why is “it” our best (and too often unrec­og­nized) friend?

The Soci­ety for Neu­ro­science (SfN) has just released a user-friendly pub­li­ca­tion titled Neu­ro­science Core Con­cepts, aimed at help­ing edu­ca­tors and the gen­eral pub­lic learn more about the brain.

Descrip­tion: “Neu­ro­science Core Con­cepts offer fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples that one should know about the brain and ner­vous sys­tem, the most com­plex liv­ing struc­ture known in the uni­verse. They are a prac­ti­cal resource about:

• - How your brain works and how it is formed.
• - How it guides you through the changes in life.
• - Why it is impor­tant to increase under­stand­ing of the brain.”

You will enjoy read­ing the web page explain­ing in detail 8 Neu­ro­science Core Con­cepts:

1| The brain is the body’s most com­plex organ.

2| Neu­rons com­mu­ni­cate using both elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal sig­nals. Read the rest of this entry »