Talk:Brain

	Brain has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 29, 2005 Peer review Reviewed November 14, 2005 Featured article candidate Not promoted December 16, 2005 Good article nominee Listed January 28, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted March 3, 2008 Featured article candidate Not promoted October 28, 2008 Featured article candidate Not promoted Current Status: Good article

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In order to facilitate discussion towards improving this article I have archived all discussions prior to 2005 here.

[edit] Smalahove in the 'As Food' Section

The text says that Smalahove is served with the brains but the Wikipedia article for Smalahove says that the brains are removed. One of them needs to be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.220.194.102 (talk) 14:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right. As far as I've been able to figure out, the brain is removed. At least, in modern times. I'll fix it. --Hordaland (talk) 20:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] billions?

hi, article specifies that brain has 23 billion of neurons, but does not specify is billion == one thousand million, or == one million million (taken from Billion) Crenshaw (talk)

I swear to you my brother that it is 10^9 or a thousand million. source 24.138.20.104 (talk) 00:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please help to figure out license type for the image "Comparative brain sizes".

I removed the above instruction from the article face. Please do not place such text in articles. You may place such requests on Talk pages. The article space is governed by policies and guidelines, including WP:MOS, that prohibit such edits. Thanks. encephalon 08:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC) sbsddsdewdddddcsdd

[edit] Will and directed brainwork

It's will that controlls us. Everything you do (think, eat, move) you want it.

1. Humans have ability to direct all one's brainwork (thoughts, feelings, wills) to another one. That means you can make another soul to feel what you do, feel, think. He will feel his own and sender life at same time.

2. You can use your muscles with will what controlls them. You can controll some another human body(muscles) with your own will. That means you can make another soul to do(think) what you want (to want what you want). His muscles will do what both of you want. You can think to another one, who will feel his own and the sender's thoughts at same time.

You must want it. That's life. Joakim 21:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

You're talking about the cognitive mind which arises out of brain function. --Oldak Quill 22:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] brainPOP @ my brain

by michael simpson The brain is the supervisory center of the nervous system in all vertebrates. It also serves as the site of emotions, memory, self-awareness, and thought. Hippocrates considered the brain to be the seat of thought, while Aristotle believed it to be a cooling system for the blood. The brain stem is the lower part of the brain, adjoining and structurally continuous with the spinal cord. The upper segment of the human brain stem, the pons, contains nerve fibers that connect the two halves of the cerebellum. It is vital in coordinating movements involving right and left sides of the body.

Mkay....Link9er 14:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article re-write and restructure

I saw that this article came up for review as a FAC. I still think it needs an overwhelming amount of work. Fortunately many of the subsections are very good so, although the task seems daunting, I am proposing the following "roadmap" towards improving the article:

Phase 1: Fact checking - there is a lot of unsourced information in the article. Much of it is very basic and should be covered by referring to a basic textbook. Other is quite esoteric. We can start doing this bit by bit and along the way.

Phase 2: Designing a better organizational scheme - the article is very disjointed and out of order. We need to decide on a better scheme (we can discuss these here) and do a major rearranging.

Phase 3: Removal of extraneous information: There is a lot of information here that does not belong in a basic article on the brain, a lot could be incorporated into other articles and especially that long list of regions could be sent to its own article.

Phase 4: Addition of helpful diagrams: We can find some on the net or we can draw our own like we did in the cerebellum article.

Phase 5: Proofreading: Making sure the prose is clear, technical terms are explained, logic is consistent, etc. We could recruit some editors that have provided lots of help with proofreading science articles such as Tony to help out.

OK, I know this is a lot of work, but now we know where to start. Any comments? Nrets 21:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• I've cleaned up and simplified the brain regions list, linking to the List_of_regions_in_the_human_brain article. That article needs quite a bit of work as well, unfortunately... Semiconscious (talk · home) 23:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• I have re-structured the article to fit a better organizational scheme. I also removed some extraneous and redundant info. It would be useful to get input from other editors in terms of any general sections that are missing from the article.There is still random bits and pieces that seem out of place and maybe should be removed, but it would also help to have other editors look at this. Nrets 20:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

• • I'm just looking at this, and although it is GA, there are far too few inline citations.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 13:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Internal links

Whitecat: Before you begin removing wikilinks from articles I think you should read my reply on Talk:Human_brain, as well as the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) you linked to. Notably the following: On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered overlinked if any of the following is true:

• more than 10% of the words are contained in links;
• it has more links than lines;
• a link is repeated in the same article (although there may be case for duplicating an important link that is distant from the previous occurrence);
• more than 10% of the links are to articles that don't exist; or
• low added-value items are linked without reason, e.g., 1995, 1980s and 20th century.

The links are not abnormal, and I see no reason for you to have removed links to tribe and film on the brain article. Both of those are interesting internal links for people to follow. Semiconscious • talk 06:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

See [1] at Talk:Human_brain WhiteCat 15:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Humans the most inteligent???

Hollyyyyyyyy shit!!! I have never seen a picture of the elephant's and the dolphin's brains before i knew that they were big but this. Look at the amount of gyri they have - more than our own brain does. These animals have got to be smarter than us in so many aspects. -- Boris 19:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Whale brains are insanely large... But yeah, I never noticed now many gyri and sulci the dolphin and elephant brains have. Crazy. Semiconscious • talk 20:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the brains of birds have no gyri and sulci, and african grey parrots and corvids (jays, ravens, crows, etc) are considered to be around as intelligent as apes and dolphins (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/description/Bird_intelligence) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.113.233.121 (talk) 21:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

I do not believe brain size matters. If it did, elephants and dolphins wouls rule the planet, be able to talk, and other sci-fi sounding things.

☻wilted☻rose☻dying☻rose☻ (talk) 13:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be more intelligent to not wish to "rule the planet"? --Hordaland (talk) 01:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I've heard it is actually brain size in comparison to body size which is a good measure of intelligence which makes sense in this respect.--Supertask (talk) 16:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I've heard the same thing. But the brain to body mass ratio article and its Talk:Brain to body mass ratio discussion page seem to say it's not such a good measure after all. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 18:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CJD, kuru and brain eating; references

There's a statement in this article:

Brain consumption can also result in contracting fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other prion diseases in humans

which has a reference attached to it. Unfortunately, the references in this article are badly maimed. I would like to see such a reference; while the causal connection between brain eating in humans and the disease 'kuru' has been well documented (as stated in the following pa How did the brain get it's name? Where is the place ment of the brain? what is the of the brain?

[edit] Picture of FMRI

I would like to add a picture of an FMRI scan in the subsection "FMRI and BOLD" - would this be ok?

Yes, be BOLD with your edits! (make sure the picture is not copyrighted and you assign it the correct license tag). Nrets 01:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "New Church Teaching"

Surely this is vague philosophising about the brain, not Study of the Brain.1Z 18:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

In mammals, the brain is surrounded by connective tissues called the meninges...

contrast with

The brain is bathed in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which circulates between layers of the meninges...

If the brain is surrounded by a cavity which contains CSF, it is not directly bathed in CSF. The article needs to make up its mind. I would suggest the former terminology, since it has the advantage of being consistent with fact. Not that Wikipedia tends to predicate information on such a basis as that.

The interstitial fluid in which the brain is bathed is not the same as cerebrospinal fluid. If it were, the blood-brain barrier and the blood-CSF barrier would be the same thing. They are not. --76.209.59.227 22:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Energy costs

A vertebrate brain about the same size in a cold blooded animal and in a warm blooded animal will demand around the same amount of energy. Which is why big brained animals is almost only seen in warm blooded animal. From http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_10_108/ai_58360823/pg_3 :

"Fish, after all, are cold-blooded animals, with "low-cost" bodies in terms of energy use. Because they do not produce much heat, cold-blooded vertebrates have a metabolic rate only 10 to 20 percent that of warm-blooded vertebrates at the same body temperature. Yet their brains need about the same amount of energy, because both warm-blooded and cold-blooded brains function in essentially the same way on a cellular level (cold-blooded and warm-blooded brains consume nearly the same amount of energy).

The bigger an animal gets, the more expensive having a large brain becomes. For a 1,000-fold increase in body mass, the rate of whole-body energy consumption rises only about 100 times. But a 1,000-fold increase in brain mass results in a 500-fold increase in total brain energy consumption. In general, then, relative to body size, big animals have small brains.

A cold-blooded human-sized vertebrate, such as a 150-pound alligator, has a whole-body oxygen consumption rate of approximately half a liter of oxygen per hour at 68c E But a human-sized (3-pound) brain in a cold-blooded animal would itself consume approximately a liter of oxygen per hour at the same temperature. Thus, an alligator with a human-sized brain would have to find three times more food than an alligator with a typical brain size of 0.3 ounce would. It's not surprising, therefore, that large cold-blooded vertebrates with big brains do not exist.

The rule among vertebrates--that 2 to 8 percent of the energy used by the organism is consumed by the brain--holds for all warm-blooded species (mammals and birds) as well as cold-blooded species (fishes, amphibians, and reptiles). Because the bodies of warm-blooded species consume about ten times more energy, they can afford to have brains that are approximately ten times bigger than those of cold-blooded vertebrates (with the elephant-nose fish a rare exception)."

Something that could fit in the article maybe? Rhynchosaur 23:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brain in animals

Not all animals have brains (See also: supraesophageal ganglion and Sponge). We should address the first sentence of this article. -- Selket ^Talk 19:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] about brain

Size The cortex has 15 million neurons per sq. cm, or 146000 per sq. mm. This holds throughout the brain, regardless of cortical thickness, except in vision areas, where there is 2 1/2 times this number. [C 51] A typical neuron may have one to ten thousand input connections, but may have as many as 200 thousand. [A 40] A typical neuron may make 1000 connections to other neurons. There are approximately 100 billion (i.e. 1011) synapses per sq. cm, or 10 million per sq. mm. This estimate is based on a nominal 7000 synapses per neuron. The area of the cortex is 2200 sq. cm = 0.22 sq. m. The neocortex is 700 sq. cm. [C 45] Therefore the human cortex contains approximately 30 billion (3 X 1010) neurons. [C 51] Other estimates run from 10 billion to 100 billion (1010 - 1011) neurons and 1014 to 1015 synapses. [A 5] The chimp and gorilla have about 500 sq. cm of cortex and therefore 7-8 billion neurons. [C 51] A rat has 4-5 sq. cm of cortex, and therefore about 65 million neurons. [C 51] There are approximately 100 million receptor cells in the retina. They feed into approximately one million ganglion cells (also in the retina). After age 40, about 1000 neurons die per day. (I seem to have forgotten the source of this...) Speed Typical spikes (action potentials) are 1 - 10 msec. long. Maximum spike rate is several hundred per second. It takes at least N msec. to distinguish N values by rate coding (due to the Gabor uncertainty principle). Therefore, in 100 msec. a value can be transmitted with 1-2 digits of precision. [M 166] The synaptic delay is about 1/2 msec. [A] A typical postsynaptic potential has a rise time of 1 - 2 msec. and a decay time of 3 - 5 msec. Much longer decay times occur, tens to hundreds of msec. [A 39-40] The membrane time constant is typically 1 - 2 msec. [A 30] The membrane length constant is typically 2 - 5 mm. [A 30] A typical mental rotation rate is 450 degrees per second. [G 515]

[edit] I want to clear this once and for all

Does brain size omake a huge difference in the maximum possible intelligence? Somoe senior at my school keeps coming up with b.s., such as liquiod nitrogen causing things to lose magnetic fields, size = intelligence, etc. I say that brain size makes a small difference, but is not a true dirct major factor in intelligence, basiong it partially on our osmall dog being highly intelligent, some kids being incredibly smart while their brains are still developing, etc. Which of us is right?

Brain size, all other things (environmental, diet) being equal, does determine intelligence. Bendž|Ť 12:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The female brain is slightly smaller than the male, yet women are not less intelligent than men. The dolphin brain is larger than the human brain, and I think you'll have a hard time arguing they are more intelligent than we are.

That being said, a recent meta-study concludes that, for non-human primates, brain size is the best indicator of cognitive ability (Overall Brain Size, and Not Encephalization Quotient, Best Predicts Cognitive Ability across Non-Human Primates, Brain Behav Evol. 2007 May 18;70(2):115-124). Superdix 16:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You should ask at the science reference desk. Bendž|Ť 21:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've heard it is actually brain size in comparison to body size which is a good measure of intelligence which makes sense in this respect.--Supertask (talk) 16:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No brain?

There are two cases i found: [2] [3] The first one - 44 year old french citizen, father of two kids and with an IQ a bit lower than the average had very little brain. The second one - mathematic student in Sheffield University, UK was found to have 1 mm brain tissue covering the top of his spinal column. The student have IQ of 126. I couldn't find any other data than news to support this info and if some of you can, i think it will be very informative if you include this in the Brain article. Vordhosbnbg 07:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

There is already an article on Dandy-Walker syndrome. I can't access the second link. Sounds interesting. Bendž|Ť 06:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Try this one - [4]. Vordhosbnbg 13:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too humancentric?

This article seems a bit too human centred to me. Many thousands of creatures have brains, and I'm sure they have a huge variation in how their brains work, behave and appear, yet a large portion of this article seems to be about humans.

I think perhaps the page "Brain" should be more general, and most of the human stuff should be moved to a "Human Brain" page. Especialy since the human brain isn't very typical as far as brains go. -OOPSIE- 03:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with moving any disproportionate human-brain info to the sub-article. Bendž|Ť 09:47, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to take issues with this statement:

In mammals, increasing convolutions of the brain are characteristic of animals with more advanced brains.

This reinforces a problem with how evolution is discussed in and out of scientific circles. It implies a goal that evolution has to create big brains, and that big brains are more "advanced" than little brains. The appropriate way to think about anatomical features is whether they are better or worse based upon their ability to help the organism adapt to its environment, not how closely it conforms with some anthocentic ideal. --Dwcsite (talk) 20:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Too mammal-centric still

Somebody better in neuroanatomy than me should peruse this and update the article accordingly. Basically, 90% of what was believed pre-2000 about the evolutionary context of comparative vertebrate neuroanatomy is WRONG WRONG WRONG. Birds "think" with the "striatum" and their "neocortex" is all but completely absent.
In a nutshell, we have 3 (4?) independent lineages of brain evolution in vertebrates: 1-2 "fish" ones, the "avian" one and the "mammalian" one. The latter 2 separated some 300 million years ago, and "higher" brain functions were expanded completely independent from each other in these. The correlate of functional and anatomical topography of the forebrain has almost no overlap whatsoever in mammalian and avian brains. It evolved near exclusively after the lineages split.
In layman's terms, the brain of a crow and of a dolphin are about as different as their forelimbs. They evolved from the same structure, they have the same function (locomotion), but how this is achieved could hardly be more different.
Besides, I have outcommented a weird blurb about "higher on the evolutionary tree, bigger and more folded (neo)cortex". The latter half is factually wrong, the former half is... well, let's remain polite and say that teleology is dead and has been for some time, and that's good. The evolutionary tree is a pattern in time not in space; it has no "up" and "down" or "high" and "low", only "stem" and "crown" (i.e. "past" and "present"). Since the section was sourced by a reliable if slightly outdated source, I suspect it's editor error and it just needs a quick copyedit. Dysmorodrepanis 15:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] “memorizing something by heart”.

It is suggested that the above is "a colloquial variation" ... after five thousand years. May I be so bold as to suggest that a citation is needed. I quite simply do not believe this to be true. So "thinking on your feet" suggests that the brain is in your big toe?

“memorizing something by heart”, suggests to me that "hand on heart it is the truth" has more relevance. If it is not the truth, or correct, pluck my heart out. Instinct tells me this is wrong, I intend to do some research. Peta-x 13:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cortex vs Cerebral cortex vs Cerebrum vs Cerebellum vs neocortex...

Somebody please address this, I am a PhD student in neuroscience and even I can't get my head around this (I focus on the hippocampus, MTL, and temporal lobe). I really wish that all these different pages on the [human] brain could be brought under one coherent topic. thanks Paskari 19:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Energy consumption

The energy consumption section talks about 0.1 cal/min - 1.5 cal/min values. It should be kilocalories instead of calories, shouldn't it? SyP (talk) 14:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Metencephalon

"In non-mammalian vertebrates with no cerebrum, the metencephalon is the highest center in the brain". - I think mesencephalon would be more correct. SyP (talk) 09:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propose hatnote link

Should we link this to Pinky and the Brain? Brain is one of Warner Bros. more famous characters (produced by Spielberg). I was thinking about:
{{otheruses4|the center of the nervous system|the Warner Bros. cartoon character|Pinky and the Brain}}
Thoughts? ~Enviroboy^Talk_Contribs - 01:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Goat's brain

Is that picture of the goat's brain really necessary? I can understand the one of the mouse's brain, as it is informative and relevant to the topic, but to me the goat's brain is just rather disgusting and doesn't really add anything to the article. Just because there is a part about brains used as nourishment it doesn't mean there has to be a picture for it. In the article about cannibalism you also won't find a picture of human flesh prior to being used for consumption. The pictures should be to the point, scientific, objective and be useful in the context of the subject. Feyre (talk) 14:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks just like a brain to me; nothing disgusting about it. However, I do have two issues concerning this image. Firstly, the quality of the image is absolutely horrible. Secondly, the section is on brain as food, but the image is one of an uncooked brain. There already is an uncooked brain in the lead section, so I think that this section should have an image of a cooked brain. Shinobu (talk) 23:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Traumatic Brain Injury

In my (admittedly superficial) reading of this article, I find nothing on traumatic brain injury. Can anyone write about this? Pittsburgh Poet (talk) 00:15, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Try reading Traumatic brain injury =) --78.86.137.221 (talk) 22:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Added as "See also", since it's not linked in the article. --Hordaland (talk) 10:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Hemispheres

The brain has 2 hemispheres. The right hemisphere primarily controls activities such as spacial thinking, processing music, and interpreting emotion. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body. The left hemisphere primarily controls activities such as speaking, reading, writing, and solving problems. The left hemishphere controls the right side of the body. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.152.251.141 (talk) 22:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vertebrate brain regions

Fascinating! Is there anything that can be added that isn't in the wikilinks? Hope that made sense. 98.202.38.225 (talk) 23:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Colour coded images

Could someone knowledgable about the subject replace the rotating animation with one or more static colour coded images? The animation is too unclear and makes it impossible to focus on the image to let it ‘sink in’ due to being animated. Also, a labelled or colour coded version of the mouse brain and possibly other brains would be nice. Shinobu (talk) 23:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Origin

The following section was recently removed from the article. It may need rewriting, but I think it should be in there. (If one searches for 'Evolution of the brain', one is re-directed here, so there seems to be no other and better place for it.)

Origin Since even unicellular organisms can have, at least, photosensitive eyespots and react to tactile stimuli, it is hypothesized that sensory organs developed before the brain did.^[1] The brain is an information-processing organ and its evolution is dependent on the presence of information accessed into sensory organs, sensory input, and the need to process this information and transmit it.

--Hordaland (talk) 04:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes -- I envision that the "Functions of the brain" section will start with an overview, explaining that all organisms need to integrate information from the environment, and use it to generate appropriate actions. And that even single-celled organisms need to do this, but for large multicellular organisms, the need arises for a special system to transfer information between different parts of the body. So that seems like the right place for this material -- I've added some discussion of evolution already to the section on brain structure, but this seems a bit too abstract to belong there. In the long run, I want to put together a separate "evolution of nervous systems" article if nobody beats me to it -- there's a lot of cool stuff to say about that topic. Looie496 (talk) 06:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. I considered just re-adding the content to the article, but it looked to stick out like a sore thumb no matter where I put it. I think the concept is important enough to be included somewhere, even if it perhaps should be obvious. (This is somewhat related to a pet peeve of mine about eyes and the assumption that they evolved for image-forming vision, rather than first for circadian rhythms. Hmmm, now I'm wondering if I'm the one who introduced that paragraph in the first place...) Thanks for all your work on the article! --Hordaland (talk) 06:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This concept still not (specifically) covered? --Hordaland (talk) 10:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

It's in the lead now. Should it be made more explicit? Looie496 (talk) 17:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POEM

The poem at the beginning is very out of place and not at all suitable for an encyclopedic entry. It needs to be removed.

preceding unsigned comment added by 74.129.108.218

I've added this note and also added the section heading. --Hordaland (talk) 18:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not a poem, it's only described in the article as "poetic". As the one who added it, I obviously feel that it's suitable, but I am open to further opinions. Looie496 (talk) 18:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

It's also, I might add, a very famous quote, which has been used in dozens of books and articles. Looie496 (talk) 18:58, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Find a better example?

"In other cases, sensory signals modulate an ongoing pattern of behavior, as for example when sunlight indicates that it is time to awaken."

I am sure that a better (more direct, simpler) example can, and should, be found. The mechanisms of sleep onset and offset are quite complicated. The sentence as written might suggest that animals in arctic regions are awake or asleep for 6 months at a time. OK, devil's advocate here, but I do think this example should be replaced. Thanks, --Hordaland (talk) 10:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure I understand your objection, so I'm afraid any replacement I found (hunger?) might have the same issue. Are there any specific ideas that occur to you? Looie496 (talk) 17:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the example is OK, and it's the wording I object to? The sentence make it sound like a very simple cause → effect, which it isn't. In addition, not all animals awaken to sunlight, quite the contrary.

How about: "In other cases, sensory signals modulate an ongoing pattern of activity, as for example the effect of light-dark cycles in nature on an organism's sleep-wake behavior."

(Trying to avoid the use of the word behavior twice in one sentence, here)

Done, with a couple of tweaks. By the way, I hope you will feel free to make changes where things look awkward or incorrect to you. Looie496 (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

BTW, have you seen this? I'm not even sure what it's a part of, but it is fascinating. (.......Ok, I looked again; it's part of this.) --Hordaland (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

No, not familiar with that. I'll look it over. Regarding the function of sleep, for slow-wave sleep I've become pretty convinced by Guilio Tononi's way of thinking about things -- for REM sleep I have my own idiosyncratic theory, along the lines that its function is to allow an organism to simulate situations that are encountered rarely in life but when encountered are so important that it's critical to get them right. Looie496 (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Brain and Mind" section reads like a poorly written high school paper

The brain and mind section reads like a poorly written high school paper.

The tone is unprofessional including gems like, "It is hard to doubt that a relationship of some sort exists..." "Through most of history the great majority of people, including philosophers, found it inconceivable that anything like thought could be implemented by what is in essence a mere piece of meat," and rhetorical questions.

It needs work. 63.139.220.200 (talk) 16:30, 28 October 2008 (UTC)TC

My main aim in writing that section was to raise the issues and direct readers to the articles that deal with them, while avoiding statements that would require an extended defense for which there is no room here. But if you have specific suggestions for improving the wording, please make them. Or if you wait a few days, the semi-protect will expire, and you can edit the article yourself. Looie496 (talk) 18:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I just rewrote the Brain and mind section. If anyone is interested in reading it and removing the infoboxTino Georgiou: The Fates (talk) 02:48, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't think it's an improvement -- to me it reads like kind of a hash now, and contains a couple of statements that I believe are actually false. I think it would be better to go back to the previous version, but because I'm the one who wrote it, it might be less likely to lead to hard feelings if somebody else does the revert instead of me. looie496 (talk) 04:39, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't add anything, I just rewrote what was there. But I agree, let a neutral party decideTino Georgiou: The Fates (talk) 04:58, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe the tone right now is a bit better, however still not enough to take the infobox out. Example of tone problems that are still in the section is the initial sentence: Throughout time, many of history's greatest minds have contemplated the conscious and subconscious relationship with the physical brain or the last sentence: In addition to the philosophical questions, the relationship between mind and brain involves a number of scientific questions that fall into the realm of cognitive neuroscience: What is the detailed relationship between thought and brain activity? What are the mechanisms by which drugs influence thought? What is consciousness, in physical terms, and what are the neural correlates of consciousness?. However as Loie says this may have introduced mistakes in the article (although some of them were already in the article). Just to make the point the first paragraph sasys: Throughout time, many of history's greatest minds have contemplated the conscious and subconscious relationship with the physical brain by experimenting with drugs and measuring the effects[75] These studies have produced wildly different results and led to the theory of a symbiotic relationship between awareness and the physic brain - with the physical brain being responsible for electrochemical neuronal processes and the mind controlling the mental attributes like beliefs, desires, and perceptions

• many history's greatests minds have experimented with drugs: duvious
• They have used them to contemplate relationship between mind and brain: plainly wrong: they could not know that the effects were to the brain; at most that a phisical entity modified its sensations and mind state.
• Measuring the effects: Effect of drugs is very difficult to measure even in carefully planned experiments right now, very hardly along history
• and have led to a symbiotic theory: implies direct cause and effect: very dubious
• Symbiotic theory: it could be debated that it is the actual belief
• Subconscious: study of subsconscient is very debated, and any way it began in the 19th century

I do not really know which of the versions is better. I would eliminate both and really rethink how and where to rewritte it. Relationship between mind and brain has sense speking about humans, and at most primates; so it should be related to it in the article. At the same time most of it is historical conceptions and should be moved to history... I do not really know how to do it; but anyway a lot more of searching and referencing should be done for this section to be of interest. --Garrondo (talk) 13:48, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think just getting rid of it is a good option -- most likely it would never come back. I've done a rewrite based on the old version, but making changes that seemed in the spirit of the new version. I didn't feel like I could use the specific material from the new version, for the reasons that Garrondo has explained. I've also boldly removed the tag from the section, but would have no problems with anybody who feels it is still needed putting it back. looie496 (talk) 17:06, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll get to work on it. I agree with Looie469 that it is relevant to the entry...I also agree that the entire entry is rather sloppy. Tino Georgiou: The Fates (talk) 20:08, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

My apologies for originally wording this as I did (it was unnecessarily mean). But the tone is still a problem:

For example: "But does this mean that the brain is the mind? Or only that they are bound together in some intimate way?" Rhetorical questions like this are not appropriate for an encyclopedic entry. If the source indicates that they are bound together in some intimate way, say as much directly: "The most straightforward scientific evidence that there is a strong relationship between them is that numerous drugs, which act directly on the physical substance of the brain, have strong effects on the mind. Some philosophers, such as Patricia Churchland (link to her wiki article), posit that this drug-mind interaction is indicative of an intimate connection between the two, not that the two are the same entity."

It is also important to note that this objection comes from a philosopher and as such is not exactly an appropriate rebuttal to the scientific claim that the mind and brain are the same. The philosophical view gives us perspective, but it should not be portrayed as a legitimate alternative to science.

To expand on what I mean, the section has this sort of tone to it: Science says one thing, but because a large number of philosophers can't begin to imagine how science could be right, we should consider their proposed alternatives as legitimate rebuttals to the science. This sort of statement would be unacceptable in the following application: Science indicates the universe is billions of years old and was brought about by the big bang, but a large number of religious leaders can't imagine how science could be right, we should consider the alternatives as legitimate rebuttals to the science. The consensus of philosophers (if there is a consensus) that thought can't come from the brain even though science says otherwise should not be portrayed as a legitimate criticism of the science, at least no more than intelligent design should be portrayed as a legitimate rebuttal to the big bang.

I'm making some changes based on this. In particular I am removing a number of the specifics concerning Ms. Churchland and Descartes; there is an entire article on the philosophy of mind to discuss their individual beliefs. 63.139.220.200 (talk) 16:28, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

One thing to bear in mind here is that there is a very large pool of readers who will think that this is by far the most interesting aspect of brains. It's very important for the section to signal that it understands that. It's tricky: the passage should remain "encyclopedic", but it needs some degree of elevation of tone to convey the right attitude. I think you've flattened it a bit too much -- I'll try to reshape your version a bit. I suspect that we may not be able to reach a result that both of us are completely happy with, but maybe we can reach a result we all can live with.

Re Churchland, she is one of relatively few philosphers who are pretty widely respected by scientists -- Dennett is another. Her book "Neurophilosophy" gets most positive reviews from neuroscientists -- that's why she was specially mentioned. looie496 (talk) 17:05, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Re Go for it! I don't want it to be too flat. The big problems I had were the rhetorical questions that did not indicate who was raising them (leaving it ambiguous if it was the scientists or philosophers who had any doubt as to the nature of the brain/mind problem). Liven it up a bit... just pay due attention to differentiating between the scientist's concerns and the philosopher's and properly attributing who said what. 63.139.220.200 (talk) 22:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] brain size

This section completely lacked summary style and encyclopedic tone. I have greatly summarised it and moved it. Since I have eliminate quite a lot of info I move it here, since it could be of use in the future.

There has been quite a bit of study of the relationships between brain size, body size, and other variables across a wide range of species, largely because the easiest way to study any object is to measure its size. Even for extinct species brain size can be estimated by measuring the cavity inside the skull. The story that emerges, however, is complex.

As might be expected, brain size tends to increase with body size (measured by weight, which is roughly equivalent to volume). The relationship is not a strict proportionality, though: averaging across all orders of mammals, it follows a power law, with an exponent of about 0.75.^[1] There are good reasons for expecting a power law: for example, the body-size-to-body-length relationship follows a power law with an exponent of 0.33, and the body-size-to-surface-area relationship a power law with an exponent of 0.67. The explanation for an exponent of 0.75 is not obvious—however it is worth noting that several physiological variables appear to be related to body size by approximately the same exponent, for example, the basal metabolic rate.^[2] This power law formula applies to the "average" brain of mammals taken as a whole, but each family (cats, rodents, primates, etc) departs from it to some degree, in a way that generally reflects the overall "sophistication" of behavior.^[3] Primates, for a given body size, have brains 5 to 10 times as large as the formula predicts. Predators tend to have relatively larger brains than the animals they prey on; placental mammals (the great majority) have relatively larger brains than marsupials such as the opossum.

When the mammalian brain increases in size, not all parts increase at the same rate.^[4] In particular, the larger the brain of a species, the greater the fraction taken up by the cortex. Thus, in the species with the largest brains, most of their volume is filled with cortex: this applies not only to humans, but also to animals such as dolphins, whales, or elephants.

The evolution of homo sapiens over the past two million years has been marked by a steady increase in brain size, but much of it can be accounted for by corresponding increases in body size.^[5] There are, however, many departures from the trend that are difficult to explain in a systematic way: in particular, the appearance of modern man about 100,000 years ago was marked by a decrease in body size at the same time as an increase in brain size. Even so, it is notorious that Neanderthals, which went extinct about 40,000 years ago, had larger brains than modern homo sapiens.^[6]

Not all investigators are happy with the amount of attention that has been paid to brain size. Roth and Dicke, for example, have argued that factors other than size are more highly correlated with intelligence, such as the number of cortical neurons and the speed of their connections.^[7] Moreover they point out that intelligence depends not just on the amount of brain tissue, but on the details of how it is structured.

--Garrondo (talk) 17:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll move this into the brain size article, I guess, but I'll wait until you've paused with this article, because the relevant references should be moved too, and I don't want to ec with you. By the way I approve of most of what you're doing, with the exception of the way you handled the "Brains as biological computers" section, but we can discuss that later. Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Today I have a bit of a wikirage: I have work problems and I needed to relax in the afternoon, and I took it with this article. I do not plan to edit so much in it after this, but I felt that with some pruning in its structure it could be much more readable. Regarding the biological computers: I really do not like it where it is right now, since it is too much detail, but I believe that if summarised it could really fit in it. The times when people thought that brain and computer where the same are forgotten and right now it is more a research method (very useful) than anything else. Best regards. --Garrondo (talk) 18:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

<-What has happened is that over time the meaning of the word "computer" has shifted, and most people nowadays take it to mean something very similar to the laptop I am writing this on. In that very specific sense a brain obviously doesn't have much resemblance to a computer. But if you think of a computer in a more general way, as a thing that computes, the story is very different. I could pile up hundreds of high quality sources to document that lots of people still think of brains as computers in that sense. For example, the Abbott and Dayan "Computational Neuroscience" book referenced in this article is 90% about how neurons compute, and only a little about how digital computers are used to study the brain. I feel that it's important for this article to discuss the brain as a thing that computes. Looie496 (talk) 18:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a note that I have added the material above to the brain size article, and removed the no-longer-needed refs from this one. Looie496 (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)