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It was infotainment doctor’s style, when Dr B Ramamurthi, India’s pioneer neurosurgeon spoke on the marvel that the brain is, as part of the National Science Day celebrations, at a packed hall of the Central Lecture Theatre, IIT. A brief synopsis of the speech:

There are two marvels actually, one, the brain itself and two, humans know very little about the brain. Of course, in India, the brain is not very important, as we send it to other countries!!! In general, knowledge about the brain has been very late in coming.

The brain is the only organ in which cells do not change with age. The thinking that it becomes less efficient with age is more social and psychological. "Vayasacchu, kezham gammunu irukkavendiyathuthane." Exercising the brain is very important, to keep it working well, instead of allowing it to decay or waste away. So the effect of mind on body and body on mind makes an interesting study.

`Man ought to know that from the brain and the brain alone arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests as the heart has no quality.

How many of you know that a man’s brain weighs only 1.5 kg while a woman’s 1.3 kg, out of a possible body weight of 60 kgs? That triggered a heated protest from the fair sex at another talk, they simply did not want to believe it. Finally I had to pacify them by saying that size has nothing to do with quality and intelligence or efficiency. A bigger brain is like our government offices – big and functioning badly.

Anyway, with such a small setup, the brain does so much – language, speech, memory, planning, discrimination, etc. Speech takes up a lot of brain space. Again you don’t just take things in, you think and learn to judge for yourself. A little rambling – all of you must have the will to learn and ask, ASK – only then can there be intellectuals.

An adult brain has about 1000 billion nerve cells and that’s a lot of brain power. Why man has been given this enormous power is a mystery. It needs to be studied and discovered by young people like you."

The brain stops growing after 18 months in a human being. It does not mean that your intelligence is limited, but after that, only junctions develop. So the more junctions, the more knowledge. For evolution of the brain, nutrition of the pregnant mother plays a major role. "From the heartbeat to the highest philosophical thoughts, to the worst criminal thoughts, all come from the brain." But all you eat does not go to the brain. No chemicals are allowed to enter the brain. Nature has protected the brain from chemicals, so only limited chemicals enter, due to the blood-brain barrier.

One third of the body’s blood goes to the brain alone. So the brain consumes about one third of the energy used by the human being. By increasing blood supply to the brain by exercise, we can get good results. It also needs a lot of oxygen. If the brain does not have oxygen for 1.5 minutes, it dies. Only under hypothermia --- very low temperature --- can it survive without oxygen.

The brain is an electrochemical complex. Nearly 50-60 chemicals are produced in the brain, like neurotransmitters, neuromessengers, etc.

The brain does not sleep. It is active even when a person sleeps. If it sleeps, it dies.

The brain has two hemispheres, left and right. The left side takes care of calculating, logic, etc, while the right side is intuitive, creative, artistic. There are studies on neural networking which is nothing but solving the mystery of the working of the brain: which part is responsible for what, whether certain kinds of behaviour are related to malfunctioning of cells, etc.

Then there are a number of psychological questions which need to be answered. For instance, why does man kill man? It is interesting to note that while animals kill for food, they never kill their own kind in a fight over territory or over a mate. It is an irony, that only man, the supposedly superior species, kills man.

There are other questions --- what is imagination, ideation, acquisitiveness, aggression, moral sense, altruism, foresight, intellect, origin of good and bad, etc. While pondering over these, I would like you all to read `Phantom of the brain’ – an interesting book by Dr. D S Ramachandran, who is now teaching in USA.

To wind up this talk, mind control is most important to make you a better person. These can be achieved by yoga and meditation, which are required to exercise the brain. While in the West, thought is considered to be the highest form of activity, in Indian philosophy it is a state of being without thought.

Padma Subiah

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