Richard M. Restak, M.D.

The New Brain

Introduction

 We have learned so much about the human brain during the past two decades that it's fair to speak of a revolutionary change in our understanding.  The era of the Old Brain is giving way to that of the New Brain.

The Old Brain was remote and mysterious, deeply hidden within the skull and inaccessible except to specialists daring enough to pierce its three protective layers.  Thanks to that inaccessibility and the risks involved in plumbing its depths, brain experts knew little about the functioning of the normal brain; they certainly searched in vain for answers to such fascinating questions as, "How is the brain related to our everyday thoughts, emotions, and behavior?" The New Brain, in contrast, doesn't require dangerous intrusions but can now be depicted using sophisticated computer-driven imaging techniques with abbreviated names like CKf, PET, MRl, and MRA.  These techniques reveal exquisitely subtle operational details and provide windows through which neuroscientists (brain scientists) can view different aspects of brain functioning without opening the skull or performing other risky procedures.

Thanks to the development of new imaging technologies, brain science is capable of providing us with insights into the human mind that only a few decades ago would have been considered the stuff of science fiction.  We can now study the brain in "real time" when we're thinking, taking an intelligence test, practicing a craft, experiencing an emotion, or making a decision.  Brain tests can even indicate when we're telling the truth, as well as provide a quick estimate of our intelligence and specific abilities.

Neuroscientists refer to this new field as cognitive science: the study of the brain mechanisms responsible for our thoughts, moods, decisions, and actions.  Cognition has been defined as "the ability of the brain and nervous system to attend, identify, and act on complex stimuli."  More informally, cognition refers to everything taking place in our brains that helps us to know the world.  Included here are such mental activities as alertness, concentration, memory, reasoning, creativity, and emotional experience.

In the era of the New Brain, the emphasis is shifting from diseases and dysfunctions to an understanding of the brains of the average man and woman.  An exciting consequence follows from this new emphasis on the normal brain: Research can provide us with useful guidelines about our everyday lives.  For instance, recent findings (discussed in chapter 1) indicate that by following certain brain-based guidelines anyone can achieve expert performance in sports, athletics, or academic pursuits.  Such findings, of course, run counter to the traditional theory that sports achievers and geniuses are born not made, that our genes and other factors outside of our control impose limits on our individual capabilities.  Not so.  Instead, it's now clear that by learning about and applying this new research, most of us can reasonably expect greatly enhanced personal levels of achievement.

As another example, we now have good reason to believe, based on brain research, that harmful effects on our brain can result from frequent exposure to graphic scenes of violence.  Moreover, it doesn't seem to matter if the violence is fictionalized, "real life," or a combination of both (i.e., docudramas featuring depictions of violence based on actual events).  Watching media violence changes our brain in harmful ways that we are only recently beginning to understand.

While this is not intended as a "self-help" book, I believe a lot of contemporary brain research has practical applications that can be put to use in our daily lives.  Throughout the book I will discuss this research in sufficient detail that you will be in a position to decide for yourself what, if any, practical applications ensue in your own life.  Included here are such fascinating areas of cognition as:

Twenty-first century discoveries about the brain will provide us with new insights into our behavior, thinking, and feelings.  Thanks to technological advances, neuroscientists are already successfully correlating brain function with personality; synthesizing "designer drugs" for individualized treatments of patients suffering from depression, anxiety, and other neuropsychiatric illnesses; and correlating defective genotypes with violent or antisocial behavior.  Thanks to such advances and the promise of even greater ones in the near future, it seems fair to say that technology, rather than biology, will play the major role in the evolution of the human brain.  Over the course of this book, my goal is to provide you with an overview of the kinds of changes that you can expect to come about in the era of the New Brain.