Illustration of a transparent normal brain, showing subcortical structures. Carol Donner/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: pttmedical007095.
When you think about it, brains are just about the most amazing thing there is. It doesn’t look like much, just an ugly and squishy pink thing, but without it we would be no different from those slightly creepy plastic models of people they have at the doctors office in every sitcom out there. (You know, the one where the main character vaguely bumps it and all the organs spill out just as the doctor walks in.) Its just so incomprehensible to me that within the folds of my brain tiny neurons are firing off signals that allow me to type this blog entry, alert me to the fact that I’m basically starving right now, filter out all the random irrelevant information I might be getting from my senses, and deeply ponder what it is I’m going to write next all at the same time and with great ease. Continue reading →