Hearing about neuroscience always makes me more conscious about my brain. This happened when I took my neuroscience GE and when I watched Professor Vesna’s lectures this week. As I learned in neuroscience, this state of consciousness is called metacognition - being aware of being aware. It makes me think about how my brain controls what I’m thinking about, my fingers to type, my eyes to see, my lungs to breathe, etc. In addition, Professor Vesna mentions the importance of neurochemicals. It made me think about what neurochemicals are released in my brain as I process information. For example, my neurons probably transmitted serotonin and dopamine, pleasure neurotransmitters, when I saw FMRA butterflies and Brainbows (Vesna) because they looked visually pleasing to me. In a TED talk, Christopher deCharms discusses how MRI can show how your brain processes as it’s happening (TED). This made me wonder how I would feel if I saw how my brain was feeling.
I also thought about how important our brains are in the information age. Information is continuously thrown at us, and our brains have to process that information. In the quarter system, a lot of information is thrown at us in a relatively short amount of time. For example, if the math professor wants us to memorize a lot of math equations, we have to hope that all those equations do not only stay in our short-term memory, but also in our long-term memory for our exam.
Professor Vesna also talked about all these psychologists and scientists who experimented with drugs. For example, Freud frequently dabbled with cocaine, Huxley tried mescaline, and Leary experimented with LSD (Vesna). Albert Hofmann claimed that he had an “extremely hyperactive imagination” while on LSD. This reminded me of an artist we talked about in neuroscience. This artist drew several self-portraits while on different drugs (HERB). Some of the self-portraits are really strange, but overall, they are intriguing. This really made me think about the possibilities and capabilities of the human brain.
Works Cited
deCharms, Christopher. “A look inside the brain in real time.” TED.com. TED Conferences, Feb 2008. Web. Accessed 16 May 2017.
HERB. “This man took 30 different drugs and drew 30 self-portraits.” HERB.co, 29 Jun 2015. Web. Accessed 16 May 2017.
Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience-pt1.mov.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 17 May 2012. Web. Accessed 15 May 2017.
Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience pt3.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 17 May 2012. Web. Accessed 15 May 2017.
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