Video: "My Love Affair With the Brain: The Life and Science of Dr. Marian Diamond." Flashcards
According to Dr. Marian Diamond’s research what five items are essential for a better brain?
- Diet
- Exercise
- Challenge
- Newness
- Love
Before Dr. Marian Diamond’s research, what key point was the accepted scientific understanding of the brain profoundly mistaken on?
Genetic determinism: belief that the brain’s pathway of development and potential is fixed, static and predetermined only by genetics
Who were the four members of Dr. Marian Diamond’s research team and what role did they play on the team (i.e. psychologist, chemist, anatomist)?
- David Krech, psychologist
- Mark Rosenzweig, psychologist
- Edward Bennett, chemist
- Marian Diamond, anatomist
What new information did Dr. Krech, Dr. Rosenzweig, Dr. Bennett and Dr. Diamond contribute to existing knowledge of the brain?
- They were the first with evidence, data, actual measurements in a real brain that confirmed “brain plasticity” (that the brain is not entirely determined at birth—it changes, responds and reorganizes)
- Showed that, with enrichment, the brain increased dimensions and, with impoverishment, it decreased, a 6% difference
Brain plasticity
Ability of the brain to change after birth; idea that environment can change the brain’s anatomy, physiology and function and that the brain is not a fixed, immutable structure
What are four examples of studies revealing evidence of brain plasticity?
- Size of the spatial memory areas in the brain become bigger in taxi driver
- Regions of the brain associated with playing music are larger in musicians than non-musicians
- Short-term plasticity—if you wear a blindfold for two days, your visual cortex reorganizes to process sound and touch
- With stroke patients, plasticity enables healthy brain cells to take over the functions of damaged brain areas allowing recovery of lost abilities such as speech, movement and perception
What was Dr. Marian Diamond and her team’s first paper titled and what year was it published?
- Titled, “Chemical and Anatomical Plasticity of the Brain”
- Published in 1964
What is Dr. Diamond’s advice for a better brain distilled to one simple phrase?
“You use it or you lose it.”
What were Dr. Marian Diamond and her (second team of world-renowned) associates the first to study and publish a paper on and in what year was the paper published?
- Albert Einstein’s brain
- Paper was published in 1984, 29 years after Einstein’s death
What is unique about Einstein’s brain?
Einstein had more glial cells per neuron than the average man
What are the two kinds of cells brains are built of?
Neuron and glial cells
What controversy did the discovery of difference in Einstein’s brain versus the average male brain fuel?
Role of glial cells—was previously thought of as just the support cells, or ‘nurse’ cells, so to speak, for neuron cells
What were the three main criticisms of Dr. Marian Diamond’s research on Einstein’s brain and glial cells?
- Making any suggestion about the function of the glial cell based on Einstein’s brain alone
- Quality of the 11 younger average human brains used for the comparative study
- Einstein never having given permission for his brain to be preserved and studied
What did Dr. Marian Diamond discover about love and longevity?
TLC (tender love and care) prolonged the lives of her rats from 600 days (equivalent of a 60-year-old-human) to 900 days (equivalent of a 90-year-old human)
What did Dr. Marian Diamond discover about brain plasticity as individuals age?
Plasticity of the brain was found at any age: young, middle age and extremely old age
