The picture about show the structure of human brain nerve cells a.k.a. neurons. If you’re like me, you should have 1011 (100 billion) of them, give or take.
Now, there’s more scientific proof for something you may have known: genes indeed influence the brain’s processing speed.
The researchers at Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA there’s strong correlation between the quality of brain’s axons, the brain circuitry. The thicker the nerve axon coating called myelin, less electrical current can leave the axon with the same expenditure of energy and the faster the nerve impulses are. When you’re trying to figure out something, nerve impulses are traveling all over and it’s much better for you if they travel fast, real fast.
On a related note, myelinization is the process of growing of myelin which over one’s lifespan follows an bell line: you leave your mother’s womb with little of it, it grows as you mature and continues growing and it peaks in the middle age, when it goes downward. A lot of research has been put through to better understand brain impairing disiases like multiple sclerosis and autism, which have been linked to the demyelization.
This research is yet another step toward therapies that might enhance our intelligence, not only prenatally, but also as our myelin starts to break down.
[via ScienceDaily and SDRNews podcast]
