6 Rew i r e
Yo u r
B r a i n
accident at work, a steel rod pierced Gage ’ s brain and skewered his
OFC but left everything else in his brain intact.
Gage retained his
cognitive abilities but lost much of his ability to inhibit impulses.
He had previously been a supervisor who was widely respected, but
now he became unstable (in stark contrast to his previous emotional
reserve), erratic, rude, and hard to get along with. Gage was eventu-
ally reduced to working in a circus freak show, and he died penniless
in San Francisco twenty years after the injury. His skull is on display
at Harvard Medical School.
Highly infl uenced by bonding, the OFC
thrives on close relation-
ships. If those relationships are trusting and supportive, the OFC
becomes more capable of regulating your emotions. In contrast to
the DLPFC, the OFC does not falter much in old age. Older adults
remember faces as well as younger adults do.
Finally, there are differences between the left and the right pre-
frontal cortex. The right PFC helps to develop foresight and to
get the gist of what ’ s happening in a given situation. It helps you
to make plans, stay on course
toward your overall goal, and under-
stand metaphor. If someone says, “ Michael Phelps is a fi sh, ” it ’ s your
right PFC that enables you to understand what this person is really
saying about the Olympic swimmer. Your left PFC, in contrast,
helps you to focus on the details of individual events, like how many
points were scored in the second half of a football game.
Neurons and Their Messengers
Within all these lobes,
hemispheres, and modules are a hundred
billion neurons waiting to be used. They are highly social; if they
weren ’ t used by working with neighboring neurons, they would die.
Each neuron is capable of maintaining connections with about ten
thousand other neurons. These connections change as you learn
things, such as a new tennis swing,
a new language, or the layout of
a new supermarket.
Neurons function partly on chemistry and partly on the electrical
fi ring of impulses in an on - and - off manner. Neurons communicate
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with one another by sending chemical messengers called
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