When heading back to college, it can be helpful for you to gain a greater understanding of how your brain works. After all, if you understand how your brain processes information, you may be able to use your brain’s abilities to its fullest. According to an interesting new article found in the recent issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, there are some interesting new discoveries that have taken place regarding the brain and how it works.

In the past, scientists have typically focused on stimulating a single neuron in the brain when conducting studies regarding how the brain works. Focusing on these neurons is an integral part of studying the brain, as neurons are responsible for carrying the body’s messages. In order to accomplish this task, the brain contains anywhere from 50-100 billion of these neurons, all of which interact with each other to help the brain process information.

While studying the brain’s neurons is certainly a logical way to gain a better understanding of the brain and how it works, focusing on one neuron at a time or isolating certain areas has its limitations because it doesn’t allow scientists to see how these neurons interact with one another. As Professor Rodrigo Quian Quiroga from the University of Leicster put it, “The human brain typically makes decisions based on a single stimulus, by evaluating the activity of a large number of neurons. I don’t get in front of a tiger 100 times to make an average of my neuronal responses and decide if I should run or not. If I see a tiger once, I run.”

Professor Quian Quiroga, who authored the article in the Nature Review Neuroscience along with Dr. Stefano Panzeri, also emphasized the importance of not taking an “average response” when conducting these types of studies. Although taking an average response to stimuli has been the typical method of study, Professor Quian Quiroga argues that the brain acts upon a single stimulus, which means taking an average response can be insufficient when gathering brain data. As are result, Professor Quian Quiroga and Dr. Panzeri stress that “it is important to shift from a single-neuron, multiple-trial framework to multiple-neuron, single-trial methodologies.”

Professor Quian Quiroga and Dr. Panzeri then go on to discuss two complementary approaches they feel should be used to help gain a greater understanding of the brain. One method, decoding, should be used to help determine why the brain responded in a certain way. The other, information theory, is used to quantify how much information certain neurons carry about that particular stimulus.

“Together, the two approaches not only allow scientists to extract more information on how the brain works, but information that is ambiguous at the level of single neurons, can be clearly evaluated when the whole ‘population’ is considered,” Professor Quian Quiroga said.

Regardless of the methods used by scientists to study the brain, Professor Quian Quiroga put it quite eloquently when described the human brain in this manner, “Our brains are able to create very complex processes – just imagine the perfect harmony with which we move different muscles for normal walking – thousands of neurons are involved in this and to determine the role of each is complicated.”
So, no matter what you may be studying in school, remember that your brain is a powerful instrument that is just waiting for you to tap into its full potential!