We know that the human brain is the most complex substance in the universe, and it is the material noumenon of mental activities, which means that all our mental activities are produced by the brain. Then why not call it psychological activity? Why not call it psychological activity? This is because all countries and nations in the world have gone through detours in their understanding since ancient times, that is, they first found that people's hearts stopped beating and there was no thinking activity. Therefore, as long as there is a heartbeat, there is psychological activity, which is called psychological activity. It was not until centuries later that people discovered that people with cerebrovascular accidents had stopped their heartbeat, but they were sleepy, unable to speak and had no thinking activities. At this time, they realized that the brain is the material noumenon of mental activity. But such a term, brain activity, is called brain activity in the languages of all countries and nationalities in the world, but it has not been changed into brain activity, which means that the brain is the organ of human brain activity.

Then the brain is such a nerve cell. This nerve cell is different from all other cells. This red one is the cell body, and then it sends out long axons. This axon is covered with myelin sheath of adipose tissue, which is insulating, just like insulating rubber wrapped in wires. Such axons are called axons. The largest cell has an axon in the brain, and those tiny branches are called dendrites and distributed in many layers of the brain. How many such cells are there? Yes 10 1 1 to10/2. What does this mean? It is hundreds of billions to hundreds of billions, so many nerve cells. The largest nerve cell, the one we just saw, how long is the longest axon? How tall are you? For example, your height 1.8 meters, how long is it from the top of your head to your lower back? The cell body that dominates the leg movement of the lower limbs is at the top of the brain, in the anterior central gyrus, and then its axons extend along the spinal cord to the lumbar vertebrae, because if you want to get taller, the axons of the brain cells that dominate your legs will be so long and have special shapes, the largest and very small. So from the outside, this brain is about one kilogram, less than one and a half kilograms. On the surface, this brain is made up of many grooves. It is a command department of the whole body. All the organs of the body, our every move, the beating of our heart, the changes of our blood pressure, the changes of our gastrointestinal tract, all the changes of our body and the stimulation of various external changes are controlled by the brain, so the building of this command department weighs two and a half pounds. Then these ditches, like many offices. So more than a hundred years ago, scientists thought, maybe such a command department is equivalent to an office above each ditch, and it is very likely that each office is responsible for one function. Maybe these functions and structures are one-to-one correspondence. According to this idea, scientists in ancient times 100 years ago imagined that the brain could be divided into 100 functions, including interpersonal center, friendship center and sexual center. Then this theory is called the functional orientation theory of the brain, which is a very classic theory.

So let's talk about Einstein's brain. Everyone knows that Einstein is the most famous and greatest physicist in the world. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he discovered the principle of relativity, which made physics go to a new course. And then died in 1955. When he died, his brain was taken out of the skull by the doctor and weighed 1230 g, which was the same size as the ordinary human brain and not heavier than the ordinary human brain. Then he divided his brain into 240 pieces and put them in formaldehyde, also called formalin. Keep it in a jar. I don't know why, but I am still waiting for something. Anyway, after waiting for 30 years, there was no research report and no one mentioned it again. At 1985, a group of scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, want to take a part of the brain and a small piece, and then analyze it. The results show that there are more glial cells in Einstein's brain than ordinary people. What are glial cells? The neuron we just looked at has hundreds of billions to hundreds of billions of neurons, and there are glial cells with the same number or more. As the supporting skeleton of neurons, glial cells provide them with nutrition. So Einstein has many glial cells. This is 1985, which is the report 30 years after his death. By 1999, 44 years after his death, another group of scholars reported that Einstein had a wide parietal lobe and a wide lateral fissure. What is this parietal lobe tube? It seems to be related to spatial thinking and image thinking. But it's one of the most famous science magazines in the world. It's called Science Magazine. On September 1 2000, a Chinese American named Steve Wang wrote an article and commented on it. In other words, what can your research show? What can his glial cells say? What does the width of his parietal lobe mean? In other words, it is not enough to prove that he is a genius of human beings, and he became a great physicist because of this discovery. This idea is based on the traditional functional orientation theory.

In fact, in recent years, in this field, it is considered that brain function can be divided into at least several levels, one is the function shared by people and animals. For example, food, defense, running at the risk, sleep and sexual function are all instinctive behaviors necessary for these individuals to survive, followed by the instinctive behavior of a race to reproduce. These instinctive behaviors are obviously functional. There are food center, defense center, sleep center, breathing center and blood pressure regulation center in the brain. These are obviously functional. At the second level, the function of vertebrates forms advanced conditioned reflex. In addition, the third level is race. As a new species in biology, we are different from primates. His instinctive behavior has language and consciousness. Anyone can talk at the age of two. After one year old, he will have the function of language, and then he will know the difference from others, what is mine, the concepts of consciousness and self, which are all human instincts. Then the fourth level is the habitual behavior formed in individual development. For example, the way you walk, the way you talk, when your family comes from outside, it seems that you are coming from afar. This is based on the special habits you have formed since childhood and this intelligent positioning relationship. Finally, personal awareness of being ahead of time, what do you pursue; What is your ideal; What do you love; What do you hate; What are your characteristics? These are all functions of higher consciousness, and there is no relationship between them. Then Einstein's advanced intelligence function, the theoretical function of physics, is this kind of advanced consciousness activity, and he is actually the function of the whole brain. It is impossible to reveal the essence of such a thing if we only look for its material basis from a certain part of the brain and some cells.

Let's talk about instinctive behavior first. These are two hemispheres cut from the middle of the brain. Let's look at the middle, such an inner side, this is the outer surface, this is the inner surface, the inner surface of the two hemispheres together, this inner surface, the respiratory center and the blood pressure regulation center are all here. It's called visceral brain. Then the food center is in the hypothalamus, then the sexual instinct and sexual center are also in the hypothalamus, and the sleep center is in the reticular structure of the brain stem, which is the structure deep in the brain, and then there is the medulla oblongata, which has a respiratory center and a blood pressure center. If the brain is hit, or brain tumor or cerebral hemorrhage, the pressure in the brain is high, which is called increased intracranial pressure. At this time, there will be symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and blurred vision. So in this case, if not rescued in time, there will be danger. This situation is called increased intracranial pressure, because the shape of brain tissue we just saw is as soft as tofu. When the pressure is high, there is a foramen magnum from the back, called cerebral hernia, which is dominated by internal organs. Then on the outside of our body, we see what we just said, this is a central sulcus, this is a lateral fissure, in front of this central sulcus, this purple tube moves, and this yellow tube feels. Let me see, this is the head tube, this is the pin, and it feels moving. It's like a little man lying down in the purple part in front and a little man lying down in the back. This little man's head is down, this little freak, our mouth keeps moving, so we eat and talk with it, so it occupies a big position. We have the most dexterous hands, and we have to use our hands to do everything. We are smart and spiritual, and this hand is the biggest part. Although the back accounts for a large part of our body, it moves little and can only bend around, so it accounts for a small proportion. Therefore, regardless of our body surface, this feeling and movement is just at the front and back edges of the central sulcus of the brain. There is such an inverted tubule action, and there is a feeling of inverted tubule behind it. So how do nerve cells in the brain transmit information that governs leg movements from the top of the brain? This is called neural information transmission, so all the functions dominated by the brain, regardless.

So in this process, when we study the chemical mechanism of nerve signal transmission, there are two sensational events. One is 1976 and the other is 1992. 1976, scientists found that morphine actually exists in your brain. Whether you smoke morphine or heroin, you have it in your head. This is called endogenous "poison". 1976 found that the chemical substances that produce morphine in the brain are peptide structures, called endorphins, which transmit nerve information. Whether the mood is good or not depends on how much endorphins are produced in the brain, which explains why drug addicts are addicted, that is to say, there are morphine-like substances in the brain, which are important molecules for regulating mood. If you quit smoking again, you will lose your own productivity. So you are dependent on foreign drugs, and this demand is increasing. This is the discovery of endorphins.

1992 Another discovery was that mustard gas released by Japanese militarism near Qiqihar decades ago was also found in the brain. From here we can see that this is mustard gas, that is, nitric oxide, which is produced and released by arginine by releasing small neurotransmitters from anterior cells to posterior cells, where amino acids in the brain are synthesized. This nitric oxide permeates very quickly. Why once coronary heart disease breaks out, put something and pills in your mouth, and it will be relieved immediately, and angina pectoris will be relieved, that is, mustard gas. Of course, this is a trace, and it will be poisoned if it is too much. This thing can dilate blood vessels. This mustard gas quickly diffuses back to the pre-cells after it is produced in the post-cells, which changes the speed of this neural information transmission. This is the cell behind, which produces nerve reverse messengers, nitric oxide and mustard gas. At the same time, there are dozens of cell signal transduction systems, one of which is called protein kinase, which goes to the nucleus to activate gene regulatory proteins. This gene regulatory protein promotes gene expression, so new proteins appear. If you want to remember something, there will be a corresponding protein synthesis.

Dreaming is also a phenomenon, and we know that psychoanalyst Freud is the most popular one. He interprets dreams. He uses dreams to interpret the subconscious mind, subconscious mind, your desires and needs. When you wake up during the day, you can't meet them, and then you use dreams. This theory should be unscientific and lack of experimental evidence. He has a case: for example, if you have a dream, you can find a psychoanalyst. No matter which country you are from, this doctor can explain it this way, and another doctor can have another explanation. There is no way to prove who is right or wrong, because he has no basis. He can think of it. According to your life experience, is this association right? It's hard to say. So this is not a scientific theory, nor is it a scientific research method. So to really study scientific sleep and dreams, we know that there is a reticular structure deep in the brain. Just now we said that the nerve cells that dominate the legs of the brain, the cell body is in the anterior central gyrus of the brain, and then its axons can be distributed to the lumbar vertebrae. This nerve cell with a clear direction, on the contrary, this axon is very short, and the speed of axon is reticular, so it is called reticular structure. It is hard to see who it is connected to, and the connection is very close. This structure is measured by electrophysiological methods, recording electrodes, measuring the time of radio wave reaction, how long the incubation period is, and recording this to prove that it is the center of sleep. This is still done on animals.

Let's talk about how the brain reflects and transforms the outside world. How do we perceive the outside world? The feelings and actions we just talked about, if they are physical feelings, will produce psychological activities. I know I have a pair of glasses in front of me, so why do I think this shape is glasses, and it was recently found in the lateral occipital area behind the occipital lobe. When you recognize an object, what you see is shape recognition, which is these brain regions. The following is a famous article on face recognition, a famous American actor and an American science magazine. This is a famous actor, this is strange, this is upside down, and then this comes out again, every other strange, upside down, another, and so on. It turns out that this part is called fusiform gyrus face recognition area, which is a special brain area for recognizing familiar faces, so it recognizes shapes, objects and faces. Let's see, the brain passes from the back to the front. For example, visual management starts from the occipital lobe, and every step forward is 10 to 20 milliseconds. I think the glasses should be held by hand, and the fastest time is about 200 milliseconds 0.3 seconds. In fact, from this area down, the red line replied, what do I see? What is this? Answer this question, and then the blue line identifies where it is from behind. What is this? Where is it? If this thing is moving, it is also the blue line flying in the air, so this red line is called the ventral system and this blue line is the dorsal system. These two systems are the same, they play a role in producing an object perception, and at least more than 30 brain regions work together. Therefore, it is not the perception completed by a single brain region, but the continuous activities of thirty or forty brain regions, such as the baton we said. Then we'll talk about memory. How do we remember it? As I said just now, before the 1960s, people thought that the brain had only one memory center, and this memory center was the hippocampus. Because the patient discovered this phenomenon. Then in the 1980 s and 1990 s, I found that this was not the case. Not only is there a structure in the brain responsible for memory, but almost all brain cells have memory function. At least five memory systems in the brain remember different things and different contents. Remembering nouns and knowledge is called semantic memory, and remembering my experiences of eating, drinking and meeting friends is called situational memory. I am reading a book and calculating. This is called working memory. I knitted a sweater unconsciously and got used to it automatically without thinking. This is called implicit memory. There are five kinds of memory. Then each memory involves a different brain structure.

Or the corresponding amnesia, there are many types of amnesia. The anterograde amnesia caused by hippocampus injury just mentioned means that he can't remember what he went through after the injury, and he can work tirelessly to do something, which is always new to him and can't remember what he just did. This is called anterograde. There is also retrograde amnesia, which means that you can remember what happened after an injury. Before I was injured, the earlier I remember, the clearer I remember, but I just don't remember what happened just before I was injured. This is retrograde amnesia. Another is emotional memory. For example, when we say love at first sight, this love at first sight means that young men and women fall in love at first sight, so they will never forget it. When they see it, they won't forget it for a few seconds. However, how many minutes does it take to consolidate the memory of common sense and scenes, and it takes 40 minutes to form a consolidated memory. If I am disturbed by something else within 40 minutes after this incident, I will forget it and confuse it. If I do something and nothing happens in the middle, I can remember it for forty minutes. Why? Just now, I talked about a complicated process. For example, this is a cell membrane stimulated in front. You should remember this thing. When it enters the cell through here, it will go through many links, about twenty or thirty substances, and then this substance will drill into the nucleus to stimulate gene expression and form a new protein. You will only form a long-term memory, and this process will take about forty minutes. But love at first sight, why can you remember it all at once? Because of this love at first sight, it produces hormone-like substances, which have this ability. From this cell membrane directly into the cell membrane, run inside, and then directly into the cell membrane, there is not so much substance. It can go straight through. Like a special envoy, it can go straight through two doors, through the cell membrane, and then through the cell membrane to the nucleus, so that you can form a new protein, which I like. Because of the use of emotions, once this memory is formed, it will be quickly consolidated and never forgotten, so the memory with emotions is the strongest. On the contrary, we say that forgetting is also a form of memory. Some things are unnecessary, you have to forget, you have to keep everything in mind. How can I get it? If the brain can't hold it, you have to forget it selectively.

But there is a liar. This kind of patient is like this. What do we mean by lying? I went to someone else's house. I went to someone else's house at noon and was hungry. When I entered the room, people were eating. Have you had a meal I eat, you eat. At this time, you don't want to give the host any trouble. This is a white lie. Everyone has a little. This is a courtesy, so it's not a bad thing. The other one is not. The other is a criminal's lie. He committed a crime, killed someone, committed a crime, and then the public security bureau called him. He refused to admit that it was not a lie, so he took a polygraph. There is another saying that it is a lie. This kind of claim lies have happened a lot in our country recently. What is this? Traffic accident injuries, fights between the two sides and work-related injuries all involve compensation. To compensate, this involves how much damage the real brain has, how much damage it has, and whether there are ingredients in it, so there are claims lies here. Then there's another morbid lie. The most obvious pathological lie is alcoholic mental disorder. This kind of person is called a liar, but his face is not red and his heart is not beating. Why? Because after drinking a lot of wine, there is a structure under his brain called nipple body, and there is one at the bottom of his brain that protrudes downward like a nipple, called nipple body. This part is the most damaged. After the most serious injury, alcohol is the most toxic to him. What will happen? Forgetting plus fiction, plus knowing that you can't do it, that is to say, he just did one thing and forgot it. When people ask, where were you just now? I had an idea in my head and just blurted it out. I came back from Guangzhou. It is out of the question. This is obviously a lie. You don't say! Because I saw him yesterday, he said he had gone to Guangzhou, but he didn't blush. Why doesn't he think he's lying? He doesn't think there is something wrong with his memory. People say that you have a bad memory. I have a good memory. I can remember everything you said, so this addiction to lying is due to alcoholism, which is the so-called forgetting plus fiction and lack of self-knowledge. This is called pathological lying.

Next, we will use EEG polygraph. For example, criminals are required to take a polygraph. Now everyone in the public security system knows, what is a polygraph? Measure breathing, pulse, that is, heartbeat, and one, the change of skin resistance. Ask you, do you know this man? No, what about you? I don't know him. I only breathe once, and then my blood pressure changes and my pulse changes. This is a polygraph used by the General Administration of Public Security. This polygraph is called Lao San Dao. What kind of polygraph is this? When lying, he feels nervous, perspires, secretes resistance, and the resistance and conductivity of his skin increase. Because there is salt in sweat, it is highly conductive and the skin current fluctuates. When he stopped breathing, he was temporarily stuck, and then his pulse became faster. But this veteran criminal doesn't care, he doesn't panic, his heart doesn't panic, his face doesn't turn red, and he may run away.

So what I just said was perceptual memory, lies and the like. So now there is a new interface between the human brain and the computer, such as cerebrovascular accident, and then this person is paralyzed and can only sit in a wheelchair, so he wants to play. Like this photo, he put on this hat and wrote it on his EEG. This is a board with small robots and toys on it. He thought to himself, this toy can be turned wherever it can, and it can go forward if it wants to. For example, this person, what he thinks, what words appear on this screen, thus strengthening what he thinks and sees.

Next, let's talk about advanced thinking, abstraction and image thinking, which are the most common problems, especially the problems that teachers often encounter, that is, image thinking and abstract thinking. Then at about 198 1, there was a Nobel Prize winner named sperry. Experiment with patients. Some epileptic patients can't control their seizures, but they take medicine. At this time, they put white under the two hemispheres of the brain, connecting the two hemispheres like wires, exchanging information and exchanging information. He put a knife here, then cut both sides and separated the two hemispheres. This is called a brain-damaged person. The two hemispheres do their own things, and there is no connection between them. Therefore, through the research of these people, it is found that the red one is the left hemisphere, which can solve mathematical problems, carry out scientific thinking and research on scientific inventions, while the right hemisphere is here to paint, carve and think in images, so this understanding was made at that time. That is, in the early 1980 s, it was thought that the left hemisphere was responsible for abstract thinking and the right hemisphere was responsible for image thinking, but this was the result of this split brain. After all, normal people are different from schizencephaly, but normal people have no obvious advantage, only about 65,438+00%, and both hemispheres have the functions of abstract thinking and image thinking. Then explain it a little here. A middle school teacher asked me, and the teacher said that the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere were not so clear. Why do people have two hemispheres, and why is the head not a ball? I said it was a good question. You can prove that only humans have abstract thinking from lower animals to higher animals. Through the difference of thinking in images, the human brain is two hemispheres, and all other animals are a ball. Your argument is valid, but even the brains of insects are left and right, not to mention mice, lower animals, lower vertebrates and even insects are all two hemispheres. Why? These two hemispheres are the inevitable result of life-saving. For example, rabbits and tigers come, whether they come from the left or the right, we must judge accurately. The tiger comes from the left. It runs to the right. If the judgment is wrong, the tiger comes from the left, it runs to the left, jumps into people's mouth and dies. How to judge this azimuth distance? It depends on two hemispheres and is symmetrical, whether on one side or the other, so it is to maintain life, avoid natural enemies and catch food. If a tiger wants to be hungry, it must catch food, and its prey is accurate. This position and direction are particularly accurate. It is caused by this function, not abstract thinking and image thinking. Is there a relationship between abstract thinking and image thinking? It has something to do with it. For example, the movement of our right hand and right leg towards the left hemisphere of the brain and the movement of the anterior central gyrus intersect. These are two legs and two feet. There is only one tongue. When I speak, my tongue is not divided into two parts, and there is no left and right tongue. As a whole, what should the tongue do at this time? Tongues are used by humans and much more than animals. There is no way to control this tongue at this time. If you are right-handed and your tongue is in the right hemisphere, you should love to use your left hand and your tongue moves in the right hemisphere. Only in this way can you divide the work, but this function is not abstract thinking, but image thinking. I think that when I speak, the content of my speech is abstract thinking, but when I speak, I don't need to consider whether my tongue should be extended or contracted, whether it is left or right. If I want to do that, I'm exhausted. I'm talking about my thinking, abstract thinking and image thinking, but when I speak, my voice, the movement of my tongue and my mouth are all automatic. This automation is an instinctive behavior. As long as you are human, you have this function, which is located with the brain structure, and the content of your speech is the function of the whole brain. Your advanced thinking, whether in images or abstractions, is what we said.

The last question below is the answer to schizophrenia. 19 1 1 year, the person who named this disease defined it as a functional disease with unknown causes. At that time, I always suspected that the brain structure had not changed, especially when someone wanted to harm him or thought his spouse was outside. Old suspicions are called jealousy delusion, infatuation delusion and persecution delusion, especially for paranoid schizophrenics. At that time, it was thought that it might be due to endocrine dysfunction, because teenagers and twenties had the highest incidence rate, and adolescence had the highest incidence rate. There is a kind of schizophrenia called adolescent schizophrenia. Therefore, people's understanding of schizophrenia is progressing step by step, but it is far from solving and fully understanding the real mechanism of schizophrenia, so it was considered as an endocrine disease at that time.

Therefore, the study of the brain is not only related to our daily life and our activities, but also related to many major brain diseases and the development of human civilization. Therefore, exploring the mystery of the brain is the peak of science and the most important research field in science. Therefore, since the 20th century, brain science has become the frontier of contemporary science.