The human brain is a
complex structure and over the years become the seat for thousands of myths and
speculations. Researchers have been kept busy trying to differentiate between
myth and reality.
It has been proved
beyond reasonable doubt that the human brain and the nervous system is one of
the largest, best connected networks with information flowing at great speeds
between them. Information from one part of the body is carried through the
nervous system to the brain as also the brain's response to it – carried from
the brain through the nervous system to another part of the body.
The brain is also the
seat of human intelligence and emotions. And over the years educationalists and
systems have revolved around developing the best ways of training the brain, so
as to produce very clever and well balanced future generations. This however,
has proved to be too difficult as the personality of children vary greatly from
child to child and the curriculum fails when a specific system is used for all
types of children.
In the 19th century and
the early part of the 20th century it was widely believed that the human brain
was a mass of nerve cells that developed and specialized in specific fields as
the person grew up. The common belief among the neuro biologists’ was that the
brain developed specialty as the result of practice and nothing was natural by
endowment.
This theory was
disproved by Dr. Roger Walcott Sperry and his team of researchers and students.
Dr. Sperry proved that each nerve cell of the human brain specialized in a
specific function from birth and any attempt to alter this resulted in chaos
and confusion. Using his research he proved that if the nerve cells connecting
the legs of a rat were to severed, interchanged and then reconnected, the rat
would move its left leg every time it wanted to move its right and vice versa.
The rat’s brain could never unlearn this process and change itself to suit the
new arrangement.
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