Train Your Brain: How Your Brain Learns Best

Train Your Brain: How Your Brain Learns Best — page 3
Take your hands and make fists Then put your fists together You’re looking at a pretty good representation of your brain in terms of its size as well as the two hemispheres But if you look deep within the structure of the brain you’ll find tiny little nerve cells called neurons These are what make learning possible Neurons Neurons are made up of three main parts the cell body the axon which sends signals to other nerve cells and the branch-like dendrites which receive messages from other neurons For a better idea of what neurons look like turn to page 42 Your brain has somewhere between 86 and 100 billion neurons That’s a lot Each one of those neurons has the ability to form connections called synapses with other neurons These synapses are important because your brain is using them to make connections using the knowledge and experience you accumulate every single day synapse Synapses The connections between the neurons in your body are known as synapses These are important because when you learn about something and actually work hard to understand and comprehend it your brain forms new synaptic connections But what are synapses exactly They’re actually tiny gaps between neighboring neurons Electrical signals are fired across the synapses from one neuron to another You’ve got even more synapses than you do neurons anywhere from 100 trillion to 1,000 trillion All of these connections enable parts of your brain to communicate with other parts of your body allowing you to learn and remember Learning is happening all the time It might be when you read this book when you’re playing the drums building a model or even having a conversation on the phone with a friend 6 6