There are billions of brain cells (neurons) in your brain forming a highly complicated neural network. This very moment millions of brain cells in your brain are sending messages to one another by causing electrical firings and producing thoughts, emotions and feelings.
The number of neurons in our brain increases from childhood until we reach adolescence. By that time our brain is ready to decide on the final set of brain cells it will keep throughout our life as an adult. Your brain will leave more room for expansion of the type of cells you use the most. These frequently used neurons will grow as time goes by forming new branches and expanding the neural network. The brain cells you don't use will be pruned.
But the question is how our brain selects what neurons to keep?
Scientists claim that our brain cells have the ability to self-destruct. How often do you use a specific type of brain cells, is determined by the blood flow in our brain. Different areas of the brain, different blood flow. If the blood flow is high that means those areas of the brain are frequently used. Now, the brain has this chief-enzyme called Calpain. Calpain is an enzyme which helps determine which cells should self-destruct. Calpain can be spotted in those low-traffic areas with little blood flow.
Other types of enzymes and proteins are produced in the high traffic areas of our brain where blood flow is increased. These proteins form branches and connections between well/frequently used brain cells. Its the proteins' responsibility to further develop and protect the neural network by creating new connections/branches between brain cells.
It is believed that the majority of work done by neurons to expand the neural network takes place while we sleep. This explains why sleep is so important for us humans. Our physical and mental performance is strongly
affected by the amount of sleep we get. Especially during periods when we learn new things and expect from our brain to absorb and store new information. In order for our brain to form new neural branches storing the new information we need to sleep and give our brain time to work.
I bet you've heard the phrase "..If you want to learn something new then sleep on it.."
It's true. When we try hard to learn something new, we also need significant amount of sleep in order to own the information and store it in a long-term, complex network of new neural branches.
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For the first time researchers have attempted to chart the evolutionary history of the brain across different groups of mammals over 60 million years. They have discovered that there are huge variations in how the brains of different groups of mammals have evolved over that time. They also suggest that there is a link between the sociality of mammals and the size of their brains relative to body size, according to a study published in the PNAS journal.
The research team analyzed available data on the brain size and body size of more than 500 species of living and fossilized mammals. It found that the brains of monkeys grew the most over time, followed by horses, dolphins, camels and dogs. The study shows that groups of mammals with relatively bigger brains tend to live in stable social groups. The brains of more solitary mammals, such as cats, deer and rhino, grew much more slowly during the same period.
Previous research that has looked at why certain groups of living mammals have bigger brains has relied on studies of distantly related living mammals. It was widely believed that the growth rate of the brain relative to body size followed a general trend across all groups of mammals. This study by Dr. Susanne Shultz and Professor Robin Dunbar, from Oxford University's Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA), overturns this view. They find that there is wide variation in patterns of brain growth across different groups of mammals and they have discovered that not all mammal groups have larger brains, suggesting that social animals needed to think more.
Lead author Dr. Susanne Shultz, a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow at ICEA, said: "This study overturns the long-held belief that brain size has increased across all mammals. Instead, groups of highly social species have undergone much more rapid increases than more solitary species. This suggests that the cooperation and coordination needed for group living can be challenging and over time some mammals have evolved larger brains to be able to cope with the demands of socializing."
Co-author and Director of ICEA Professor Robin Dunbar said: "For the first time, it has been possible to provide a genuine evolutionary time depth to the study of brain evolution. It is interesting to see that even animals that have contact with humans, like cats, have much smaller brains than dogs and horses because of their lack of sociality."
The research team used available data of the measurements of brain size and body size of each group of living mammals and compared them with similar data for the fossilized remains of mammals of the same lineage. They examined the growth rates of the brain size relative to body size to see if there were any changes in the proportions over time. The growth rates of each mammal group were compared with other mammal groups to see what patterns emerged.
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