3 lb Gem

In spending the day at the San Diego Natural History Museum I was able to catch a lecture titled "Our Brain: Our Selves" by William C. Mobley, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego. There I was refreshed on a lot of the information that I had learned in Psychology 101 at Grossmont College. Dr. Mobley's specialty is degenerative deceases, particularly Alzheimer's. It turns out that Down syndrome has an interesting connection with Alzheimer's, each and ever person who has Down syndrome will get Alzheimer's at some point in their life. Dr. Mobley went on to say that every degenerative brain disease occurs because of a malfunction of the neurons within the brain.

Here is a brief overview of what I got out of the lecture. One of Dr. Mobley believes is that your brain is you and you are your brain. I completely agree with this. Your body is the vessel that nourishes and protects your brain, the most complex machine on earth. The brain of a woman is statistically different from those of men. Yes it is true. He listed a few differences in size and performance that had been proven to be inherently different. The only one that I remember is that the woman's brain was that women's brains had thicker cortices and that females were more verbal in their cognition. On that note the 4 major functions of the brain seemed to be Perception, Cognition, Emotion, and Memory. A brain can be trained to preform better. Dr. Mobley spoke of a few ways to enhance the performance of our brain, most of them had to do with a good diet and the one that stood out the most was the importance of regularly socializing. I take this for granted but without constant contact the brain does not optimally function. I remember when I was reading Thoreau's Walden Pond, he mentioned that he made it a point to regularly walk into town to socialize with the locals (I think some beer was involved...in the socializing, not my reading). This had to help keep his brain in top shape to construct all the poetry and literature that came out of him during those few years.
Dr. Mobley was very interested in the compassionate functionality of the brain. He sited a few experiments where Monks and a regular population of people were studied to see who's brain were more compassionate, as measured using both brain waves and FMRI scans. The brain of a Monk was consistently and substantially more compassionate then those of the non meditaters. Mobley believes that strict meditation can enhance the amygdala and the Cerebral Cortex, both of which play a large part in compassion and empathy. (personal goal, to develop my amygdala)
I'm sure this is getting a little boring, if fact I'm about to fall asleep myself, but I only have notes on a couple more things. First is the importance of the Hippocampus for memory. This is the part of the brain that needs the most stimulation in order to remain sharp into our golden years. I know it's far a away for me, but the development of good habits now that exercise the hippocampus could greatly enhance my quality of life with little effort. It defiantly passes the cost benefit analysis test. And finally, Dr. Mobley left us (kind of) with this final idea. Genetics have an impact on society, but society has it's impact on genes. This implies that the environment can morph our genes, which further implies that we can not only change our minds or our behavior, but we can change those blocks with which our fortress is made. We are more dynamic then I previously assumed. More on this inthe future...