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The Brain: Our Universe Within
TV Series Host: David Suzuki
Review Essay by Sally Morem
In 1998, Discovery Channel presented
The Brain: Our Universe Within
, agood basic introduction to some of the latest discoveries in neuroscience. Itfeatured real life stories of people suffering from various brain diseases. Italso featured terrific computer graphics of neurons, synapses, and neural pathways, which clarified some difficult scientific concepts for the viewer.Dr. David Suzuki hosted the series just as he had for the critically acclaimedPBS series,
The Secret of Life
, in 1993.Paleontologists uncovered remains of Neanderthals in the Shanidar Caves inthe Middle East. Here was early evidence that ancient humans mournedtheir dead. Skeletons were found with wildflower pollen covering them.The mourners had dropped flowers on the body of the loved one during burial ceremonies. One elderly man had been physically disabled for years before he died. Clearly, his people cared for him when he couldn’t care for himself. All of this is evidence of the existence of ancient humancommunity
and
the ability of people to engage in highly abstract thoughtlong before any of the ancient Middle Eastern civilizations came to be.Evolving consciousness in humans corresponds to the evolving physical brain. Evolutionary processes over hundreds of millions of years added new parts of the brain to the old, creating new capabilities and new species. This process began with primitive sea creatures. They possessed a simple neuraltube connecting organs to a primitive processor of sensation and response.This neural tube much later evolved into a tiny brain, very similar in formand function to the human brain stem. Eventually, this tiny brain becamevery big indeed as it developed 100 billion neurons with up to 50,000different connections per brain cell, creating trillions of neural networks,which created detailed internal representations of the outer world, which permitted ideas, thoughts, and finally, a sense of Self to grow. This brain isalso known as the human brain.
 
 Neurons are overproduced in the fetal brain. Half of them die off when thechild is very young. As neurons ‘compete’ to handle specific sensory inputs,the child’s brain continues to develop physically well into the teenage years.This dynamic system of ever-changing synaptic networks continually shapesand reshapes itself. The environment actually changes the physical brain,creating “neural maps” to handle sights, sounds, language, and perception.As it does so, neurons grow new connections to handle these specific inputsand prune neural circuits that aren’t used. This combination of growth and pruning creates human individuality. No two brains, not even those of identical twins, are the same. Since we all experience the world in differentways, our brains develop differently in response to the differing stimuli. Weare not predestined by our DNA. Our genes permit the growth of neurons, but they don’t specify the exact interconnections between each cell.An MRI scan shows the brain in action. Brain activity levels are indicated by false colors—white for the most activity, warm colors for a lot of activity,cool colors for less, and finally black for no brain activity. We can see color changes in parts of the brain in response to finger movements or a change inscenery. By studying the activity of the brain in this way, neuroscientistshave mapped the specialized parts of the brain.How does the brain work? A combination of electrical and chemical signalssends messages from neuron to neuron in a fantastically complex dance of neural activity. Chemicals called neurotransmitters mediate the quantity andquality of transmissions. Billions of such signals allow the brain to buildmental constructs of the outer world.Our conscious selves do not apprehend the world directly. The brain filtersthe avalanche of sense data so that the conscious mind need not beoverwhelmed by minutiae. Each of us sees the world differently. Thanks tothe differences in how our brains are wired, we create subtly, and sometimesradically, differing mental constructs of our environment. Our braindeconstructs then reconstructs impressions of the outside world.When the brain doesn’t work the way it should, filtering the unending barrage of sensation from the conscious mind, the mind suffers from theonslaught. This is what happens to autistic people. Sensory overloadoverwhelms thought processes. Autistic people withdraw becauseeverything seems much too much. They fear touch because the touchsensation is so strong. They prize regularity in their surroundings because
 
this means less threatening additional change that must be processed by thedeluged brain.Information on the visual world is gathered by the eyes from light patternsand is processed successively by many strata of neurons in the visual cortex.Images are flipped, split up and segmented by these processors, and parceledout to various brain centers for further processing. The cerebral cortexreceives the processed information, allowing the conscious mind to finally“see” the image.The principle of the division of labor is fully utilized by the brain. Columnsof neurons that analyze aspects of an image—the direction of lines, the sizeand orientation of shapes, the brightness and hue of colors—thencommunicate with one another, rebuilding the image as an internal mentalconstruct.Damage to any part of the visual cortex can cause strange effects. Onewoman couldn’t see motion. Changes in the world around her manifestedthemselves in her mind in “freeze frames.” A man couldn’t recognize hisown photograph taken several years earlier.Tactile sensations are sent to a thin strip of neurons that act as a tactile mapof the body. Sound is received by the ears and transformed progressivelyinto signals to the auditory cortex. Some neurons specialize in the analysisof pitch, tempo and loudness. A blind, mentally retarded man could replayany song after one hearing. Apparently neurons were compensating for whatwas lacking in the damaged part of the brain.The sense of smell is our first evolutionary sense, and in many respects themost basic sense. Often, specific scents and odors bring back very specificmemories. Babies react to the precise smells given off by their mother’s breast. Olfactory neurons translate smells into neural transmissions, whichspread in waves throughout the brain. There are special links thatcommunicate directly to the limbic system, the seat of our emotions. Smellaugments the simple taste sensations—salt, sour, bitter and sweet—pickedup by taste buds on the tongue. Food preferences can be remembered for alifetime as tastes are stored by the brain.Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix of DNA, is now studyingthe workings of the visual cortex, the place in the brain where visual inputs
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Sally Morem

Hi italianachic, You can rent a copy of the DVD from Netflix. Here's a web page on it:

reply03 / 21 / 2010
italianachic

can i get a copy of the dvd and where can i get it y email is italianachic2010@hotmail.com

reply03 / 21 / 2010
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