L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Most Embarrassing Neuron

June 9, 2008 on 11:41 am | In General Musing, In the news |

Forget about carbon offsets. There’s another valuable resource we’re using up in whopping vatloads every day as if there were an infinite supply. Brain cells. You probably never thought twice about clicking on that lolcats link your cousin sent you. But what if you knew that you might trading the sight, say, the dramatic chipmonk for your grandchild’s face? Now there’s proof.

According to this article, familiar things in your life get their very own dedicated neuron in your brain. You might wonder how they discovered this. You might be sorry you asked…

“… each patient had around 100 tiny electrodes implanted in their brain. Many of the wires were placed in the hippocampus - an area of the brain vital to long-term memory formation.

They first gave each subject a screening test, showing them between 71 and 114 images of famous people, places, and even food items. For each subject, the researchers measured the electrical activity or “firing” of the neurons connected to the electrodes. Of the 993 neurons sampled, 132 fired to at least one image.

The team then went back for a testing phase, this time showing participants three to seven different pictures of the initial 132 photo subjects that hit. For example, one woman saw seven different photos of the Jennifer Aniston alongside 80 other photos of animals, buildings or additional famous people such as Julia Roberts. The neuron almost ignored all other photos, but fired steadily each time Aniston appeared on screen.”

Think of it. This woman has an entire neuron in her brain dedicated entirely to Jennifer Anniston.

It got me thinking. If your skull were unzipped and your neurons laid bare, what dedicated neurons would most want to cross their tiny dendrites across their suddenly exposed axons in chagrin? Doesn’t it make you want to be a little more careful about what you put in your head? What happens when you’ve filled all your neurons with junk?

I think it’s happened to me already. I need to know where I put my damn purse. There should have been a purse-locating neuron, but nooooo… Could I use this one? Nope, already dedicated to the Numa Numa guy. This one? Sorry, All Your Base Are Belong to Us got dibs on it. Surely this one over in the corner is free? OMG! Please don’t tell me I’ve lost my purse for the dancing baby!

So, spill. What have you squandered valuable brain cells on?

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