Understanding the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”

From Macro to Micro: A Visu­al Guide to the Brain (IEEE Spectrum)

In the human brain, high­er-lev­el infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing occurs in the neo­cor­tex, neur­al tis­sue that forms the out­er lay­er of the cere­bral cor­tex. In its intri­cate folds, brain cells work togeth­er to inter­pret sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion and to form thoughts and plans. The neo­cor­tex is divid­ed into regions that take the lead on dif­fer­ent types of pro­cess­ing. How­ev­er, much of today’s neu­ro­science research focus­es on map­ping the con­nec­tome: the neur­al con­nec­tions between regions…Keep Read­ing Arti­cle.

To learn more:

• Study iden­ti­fies brain cir­cuits enabling four-year-olds to “put them­selves in oth­er people’s shoes”
• What are cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and how to boost them?
• To Be (Your Con­nec­tome), or Not to Be (Your Genome)