Question: why do scientist disect peoples brains (i.e lesbiansor gays) if everyones brains are similar and its actually the mind that they should be studying?
@thunderstruck49: I’m not sure what the link in your question is to homosexuality, perhaps you can respond below so I understand that part of it better.
Dissecting brains can give medical scientists a better understanding of what is happening, particularly in people who have degenerative brain disorders like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s. Understanding how the brain is failing in these conditions, can help inform treatments and preventative measures so that hopefully in the future, your children aren’t at risk of suffering with these diseases.
We can learn quite a bit about anybody’s brain by looking at it and see how it is the same and different from other brains. There is some evidence that some gay males (but not lesbians, interestingly) have one slightly different part of their brain compared to non-gay males. But whether there is a cause/effect relationship there is unknown.
For the most part, though, everyone’s brain is very similar, and only really obvious differences (i.e., Alzheimer’s disease or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) can be observed after the person dies and the brain is removed.
Of course we only dissect the brains of people who are already dead 🙂
But with modern scanners, we are able to learn much more from the brains of people who are alive, and see which parts of the brain are active when the test subject (no humans are harmed by this procedure) is thinking about certain things or being prodded in certain ways
It’s true that everyones brains are similar, but not all exactly the same. It’s starting to become understood somones personality or ‘mind’ probably has a physical origin deep within all the brain cells and how they connect. We can use a machine called an fMRI to watch what someones brain is doing when they do different activities.
We also know that as people change, their brain can change with them. This includes someone who has a brain injury. Their brain cells might not regrow again, but they will reconnect in different ways so you can continue to act as normal.
So, people’s brains are not exactly the same and by studying the small differences we can learn a lot. People don’t even have to be dead or asleep for this to be done. You can dissect peoples brains with them awake and paying attention talking to the doctors. There’s no pain in your brain so its easy, but I can tell you from experience, it’s a little strange 😉
This is probably more info than your question asked, by I found it interesting anyway 🙂
@thunderstruck49: I’m not sure what the link in your question is to homosexuality, perhaps you can respond below so I understand that part of it better.
Dissecting brains can give medical scientists a better understanding of what is happening, particularly in people who have degenerative brain disorders like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s. Understanding how the brain is failing in these conditions, can help inform treatments and preventative measures so that hopefully in the future, your children aren’t at risk of suffering with these diseases.
See photos of a human brain dissection here: http://www.theguardian.com/science/gallery/2012/mar/28/human-brain-dissection-in-pictures
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We can learn quite a bit about anybody’s brain by looking at it and see how it is the same and different from other brains. There is some evidence that some gay males (but not lesbians, interestingly) have one slightly different part of their brain compared to non-gay males. But whether there is a cause/effect relationship there is unknown.
For the most part, though, everyone’s brain is very similar, and only really obvious differences (i.e., Alzheimer’s disease or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) can be observed after the person dies and the brain is removed.
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Of course we only dissect the brains of people who are already dead 🙂
But with modern scanners, we are able to learn much more from the brains of people who are alive, and see which parts of the brain are active when the test subject (no humans are harmed by this procedure) is thinking about certain things or being prodded in certain ways
0
It’s true that everyones brains are similar, but not all exactly the same. It’s starting to become understood somones personality or ‘mind’ probably has a physical origin deep within all the brain cells and how they connect. We can use a machine called an fMRI to watch what someones brain is doing when they do different activities.
We also know that as people change, their brain can change with them. This includes someone who has a brain injury. Their brain cells might not regrow again, but they will reconnect in different ways so you can continue to act as normal.
So, people’s brains are not exactly the same and by studying the small differences we can learn a lot. People don’t even have to be dead or asleep for this to be done. You can dissect peoples brains with them awake and paying attention talking to the doctors. There’s no pain in your brain so its easy, but I can tell you from experience, it’s a little strange 😉
This is probably more info than your question asked, by I found it interesting anyway 🙂
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