Name Origins
This animal inspired the name "hippocampus"
What is seahorse?
Some people can taste shapes and colors
Fact! This phenomenon, known as synesthesia, comes from a Greek word meaning "to perceive together.” People with this ability may hear, smell, taste, or feel pain in color. Others might taste shapes or experience colors or tactile sensations when in the presence of music. Although scientists are still trying to understand how this phenomenon works, they have found irregularities in the brains of synesthetes using neuroimaging studies. For example, in those who report colored hearing, visual areas of the brain show increased activation in response to sound.
This is the approximate age the brain finishes development.
What is 25?
This man survived after an iron rod went through the frontal lobe of his brain in 1848.
What is Phineas Gage?
This disease is characterized as an electrical "brainstorm"
What is Epilepsy?
This food inspired the name "amygdala"
What is almond?
People are either "Right-Brained" or "Left-Brained"
Myth! Contrary to popular belief and the hundreds of memes and images that perpetuate this myth, humans cannot easily be categorized as left or right brain dominant depending on their personalities. In fact, many talents once attributed to one side of the brain or the other, like creativity, language processing, spatial ability, and logic, require the integrated teamwork of both the left and right brain.
This disease is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hypnagogic hallucinations.
What is Narcolepsy?
This scientist was the first to demonstrate nerve cell morphology with his stain method in 1873.
What is Camillo Golgi?
This disease occurs significantly less in those who smoke cigarettes.
What is Parkinson's disease?
Before it was discovered to have an effect on the brain, which neurotransmitter was first described for its role in regulating the contraction of smooth muscle in the gut?
What is Serotonin?
You are born with a set amount of neurons
Myth! Although the previous statement is true for many parts of the brain, there is a general consensus that humans do indeed produce new neurons in a brain region known as the hippocampus into adulthood. The hippocampus is involved in mood, memory, and reward.
This term describes the pain amputees experience in a limb after it has been amputated.
What is Phantom limb pain?
This researcher published the case study of Louis Victor Leborgne, "Patient Tan", and a brain area was named for his discovery.
What is Pierre Broca?
This psychedelic substance is being considered as a treatment for major depressive disorder.
What is Psilocybin mushrooms?
The dura mater, the outer layer of the meninges that surround the central nervous system, is Latin for what?
What is Tough mother?
Human brains have shrunk over the past 20,000 years
True! Scientists speculate that human brain shrinkage might be due to a number of factors:
• As populations became less aggressive, humans went through “domestication”, a process known in animals to be associated with shrinking brain sizes.
• Warmer climates caused smaller body size and thus smaller brains.
• Increased social networks are associated with smaller brain size. In other words, instead of dying out through natural selection, our smaller-brained ancestors survived with a little help from their friends.
This dog breed weighs approximately the same as the average adult human brain.
What is Chihuahua? (3 lbs)
This patient was a landmark case study for anterograde and partial retrograde amnesia after undergoing a temporal lobectomy to treat his epilepsy.
What is Henry Molaison, or patient H.M.?
People with this condition have difficulty recognizing faces-- sometimes even their own
What is Face Blindness (Prosopagnosia)?
The protein that helps separate the left from the right halves of the brain during development was named after which fictional character?
What is Sonic the Hedgehog?
All human brains start out as "female" in the womb
Fact! Females have two X chromosomes (XX), while males have one X and one Y (XY). If the Y chromosome is present, it does not begin the process of sexual differentiation until 5-6 weeks. At this stage, specific parts of the genetic code on the Y chromosome become active and cause male reproductive hormone (testosterone) production
Per a 2022 study, what percentage of memories may be false?
What is 30%?
(Otgaar et al., 2022)
Without her knowledge or consent, this woman's cancer cells were used for research and eventually became the first human cells to survive and reproduce in a lab.
What is Henrietta Lacks?
This rare protein transmitted through animals causes neurodegenerative disease in humans.
What is a prion?