Autopilot by Andrew Smart Read Free Book Online

to do after learning new information is to take nap, or at least be idle.
    The prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and parts of the neocortex have to talk to each other in order to accomplish all of this. One of the ways in which neurons and brain regions send and receive information is through synchronization of their oscillatory electrical activity. In ways we do not fully understand, when information needs to travel between nodes, this information gets coded into different frequencies which then ride on top of each other like ocean waves.
    High frequency waves can only travel short distances, but low frequency can travel much farther. Thus, it appears that information coded in higher frequencies “rides” on top of lower frequencies, which can carry the information to distant brain regions. A fascinating example of perceiving far-traveling, ultra-low frequency waves was when the elephants and other animals in Thailand reacted to the approaching tsunami in 2004. Hours before any humans noticed the ultra-low frequency vibrations of the giant wave, the elephants could feel it and they headed to the hills well in advance of the destructive wave. This is because elephants can hear and feel frequencies far below the human threshold. These low frequency sound waves can travel hundreds of miles.
    Human neurons typically oscillate between 0.5 Hertz and upwards of one hundred Hz. However, it seems that most of our brain’s activity occurs at frequencies between one and forty Hz. The dominant frequency is called “alpha” which is around ten Hz. In the brain’s networks, the node receiving information needs to be oscillating in at least partial synchrony with the node sending the information.
    For example, when the prefrontal cortex needs to retrieve some associations from semantic memory, it will instantaneously synchronize its oscillations with parts of the temporal lobe, the place which stores the meanings of words. How this synchronization is achieved is still a mystery.
    The precise timing and spatial extent of this synchronization forms what’s known as the “neural code.” This is the brain’s own secret language. The holy grail of neuroscience is to crack the neural code which uses electrical and chemical signals in complex patterns that allow us to speak, read, think, remember, walk, become authors, make babies, and of course be idle.
    When anatomically distinct regions of the brain collaborate, as during Aunt Lisa’s visit, they temporarily form “functional networks.” These networks are functional in the sense that they are only formed in order to accomplish a certain task, such as to store some new factoid from Aunt Lisa. These networks can be short-lived, only lasting a few hundred milliseconds. One unresolved question in neuroscience is whether or not temporary functional networks can alter their underlying structural networks. In other words, if air traffic going to and from Bozeman, Montana were to increase beyond this airport’s capacity, would the city expand the airport, which might lead to even more air traffic?
    There is evidence of large scale plasticity in musicians who, compared to non-musicians, have much larger neural structures that represent their hands and fingers in the motor cortex. But presumably these changes take place over many years of training. The same is true of bilinguals: they have extra neural structures for languages in the temporal regions of the brain. London cabbies have famously large hippocampuses, specifically in the regions that help us navigate and remember spatial locations. It’s as if the brain decided to expand the airports in these areas to allow for the increased demand in traffic. It’s unknown how fast this type of structural change can happen in the brain. What we do know now is that brain plasticity is possible throughout our lifespan. So it truly is never too late to learn a new instrument, to learn a new