Ten amazing things for the brain that were discovered during 2019

We live and learn from this organ, but not much is known. Every year new discoveries teach us more about this marvelous organ.

Take a look at some of the biggest brain discoveries during 2019.

Anger in Dreams

People can experience much excitement while sleeping, even anger. Researchers have discovered by analyzing brain activity that they can determine whether a person is angry or not in a dream.

The team examined regions of the brain, which help control emotional expression and solve problems. Asimetic activity in the frontal brain lobe during sleep may indicate that the person was dreaming “angry”.

An Antarctic expedition creates loneliness

People even introverts are social beings, and loneliness can affect the brain. The study revealed that nine scholars who spent more than a year in Antarctica returned with a slightly smaller brain.

A group of scholars compared a scanned image of a subject's brain before heading to the continent and after returning to society. They found that parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, a region loaded with learning and memory, had a smaller volume after researchers returned.

The missing part of the brain can be compensated

It would be strange if someone could take an apple without hands. Similarly, one research group found that few people can smell even though they lack the busy brain region. In front of the brain, there are fragrant pieces that process nose - smelling information.

Researchers found her by chance, when they scanned the brain of a 29-year-old woman who could smell the aroma normally even though she lacked those parts. Researchers do not know exactly what led this magical ability to smell, but they believe that another part of the brain can take a role, demonstrating the brain's great ability to mold.

Some people feel the magnetic field

Some animals use an invisible magnetic field that ends around our planet as a natural navigation system.

Some people may also feel the magnetic field of our planet, although the cause is unclear.

In a study published in March, a group of researchers scan the brain of 34 people for whom they were told to sit in a dark room.

Brain analysis showed that four out of 34 participants showed a strong response to the change of magnetic field from northeast to northwest, but not vice versa.

It is not clear why some people responded to the magnetic field while others did not, and it is also unclear how the brain revealed such signals. But earlier studies have revealed that the human brain contains many small magnetic particles that may relate to it, researchers said.

Brain does not accept the idea of death

Death is as natural as life. But our brain protects us from the idea of our own death, making us unable to realize that one day we will join others in eternal sleep.

Your brain constantly uses old information to predict what will happen in similar situations in the future so your brain must be able to predict that you will one day die. But as it turns out, something in the idea of our own death undermines this mechanism in the brain.

A group of scholars understood this by seeing how the brain of 24 reacts when spoken about death. The measurements of brain activity have shown that the brain forecasting mechanism “crashed” when it came to the idea of a person's own death. The reason for this is unclear, but according to theorists, also very aware of a person's mortality would reduce the likelihood that a person wants to develop.

Backwater enters the brain as we sleep

Researchers have long known that brain activity is very rhythmic as we sleep, producing the activity of the wave of neurons. But this year they first discovered something else that is part of this rhythmic cycle - the cerbrospilin fluid.

This fluid surrounds and protects the brain and spinal marrow at all times, and research shows that it also clears the brain of toxic proteins while we sleep.

A group of researchers examined the brain of 13 sleep participants using a magnetic resonance machine and found that the cerbrospilin fluid actually flowed into the brain during sleep with a very rhythmic flow; brain activity decreases, blood is derived from the brain, and cerbrospilin fluid flows in.

If half the brain is missing, everything can work.

The brain has an extraordinary ability to change and adapt, as evidenced by the small group of people whose brain was removed as children to reduce nerve attacks.

Despite the absence of half of the brain, they functioned just as the remaining half was strengthened. The scan showed that among patients with only one hemisphere of the brain, brain regions locked into the same network (as it is vision) have worked together, as well as those in which the brain was intact.

They also found that the link between parts of different brain networks was stronger in patients who had removed the hemisphere, suggesting that the brain was able to compensate for many of its own loss.

Learning the Language in Bit

Your brain needs memory like that in the USB to master its native tongue. An average adult speaking English likely needs to learn about 12.5 million bit of language - related information, or he needs 1.5 megabite storage space.

The authors used the idea of <x0bitions” as an example, although the brain does not store information in bit. But most of that language information has less to do with grammar and syntax than with the meaning of words.

In the best scenario, adults will memorize between 1,000 and 2,000 bits of native language in one day, and in the worst case they will memorize about 120 bits a day.

The Resurrection of a Dead Brain

Scientists have restored brain circulation and cell activity in the brain of pigs hours after their death.

This radical experiment questioned the idea that the brain suffered sudden and irreversible damage after death. But a group of researchers have shown that cell death occurs during long periods of time, and in some cases it may even be delayed or backed up.

Researchers developed a system for post - death brain study in which they pumped a synthetic blood substitute into the brain arteries. They pumped this solution into 32 pig brains four hours after the animals died and allowed the solution to stay in the brain for six hours.

They discovered that the system preserved the cell structure of the brain, reduced cell death, and restored some cell activity. Although researchers have noted that they have not observed any activity that would indicate awareness of the brain, some wonder what it means to be alive.