THE WORK OF OUR BRAIN

Although intelligence has been studied, and the brain has been studied, there is little understanding of how the brain works to produce intelligence. This has something to do with the fact that the brain contains around 100 billion cells (about the number of star in the Milky Way).

One of the continuing myths about the relationship between intelligence and the brain is that the brains of very clever people are somehow physically different from those of ordinary people. At the beginning of the century an American scientist called E.A. Spitzka produced a list of the weights of the brains of important, well-known men. The heaviest brain on the list was that of Turgenev, the Russian novelist, at 2000g. The brain of another great genius, Walt Whitman, weighed only 1282g. There are no significant differences between the intelligence levels of males and females. However, men and women do differ in the way they think. Generally, women are more skilled verbally and men do better on visual-spatial tasks. The fibres which join the two halves of the brain have been found to be larger in women than in men. This supports the theory that women can change from "practical" to "emotional" thinking more quickly than men.

There are similarities between brains and computers. Computers can do complicated calculations at incredible speeds. But they work in a fixed way, because they can't make memory associations. Most of our mental processes are deeply formed habits. Try changing routines as often as you can. Exercise more. Good health and fitness levels give you overall improved energy which leads to better concentration.