Top 10 Mystries of the Mind

[sup_builder2]

http://www.livescience.com/health/to...themind-1.html

10. Sweet Dreams

If you were to ask 10 people what dreams are made of, you'd probably get 10 different answers. That's because scientists are still unraveling this mystery. One possibility: Dreaming exercises brain by stimulating the trafficking of synapses between brain cells. Another theory is that people dream about tasks and emotions that they didn't take care of during the day, and that the process can help solidify thoughts and memories. In general, scientists agree that dreaming happens during your deepest sleep, called Rapid Eye Movement (REM).

9. Slumber Sleuth

Fruit flies do it. Tigers do it. And humans can't seem to get enough of it. No, not that. We're talking about shut-eye, so crucial we spend more than a quarter of our lives at it. Yet the underlying reasons for sleep remain as puzzling as a rambling dream. One thing scientists do know: Sleep is crucial for survival in mammals. Extended sleeplessness can lead to mood swings, hallucination, and in extreme cases, death. There are two states of sleep--non-rapid eye movement (NREM), during which the brain exhibits low metabolic activity, and rapid eye movement (REM), during which the brain is very active. Some scientists think NREM sleep gives your body a break, and in turn conserves energy, similar to hibernation. REM sleep could help to organize memories. However, this idea isn't proven, and dreams during REM sleep don't always correlate with memories.

8. Phantom Feelings

It's estimated that about 80 percent of amputees experience sensations, including warmth, itching, pressure and pain, coming from the missing limb. People who experience this phenomenon, known as "phantom limb," feel sensations as if the missing limb were part of their bodies. One explanation says that the nerves area where the limb severed create new connections to the spinal cord and continue to send signals to the brain as if the missing limb was still there. Another possibility is that the brain is "hard-wired" to operate as if the body were fully intact--meaning the brain holds a blueprint of the body with all parts attached.

7. Mission Control

Residing in the hypothalamus of the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or biological clock, programs the body to follow a 24-hour rhythm. The most evident effect of circadian rhythm is the sleep-wake cycle, but the biological clock also impacts digestion, body temperature, blood pressure, and hormone production. Researchers have found that light intensity can adjust the clock forward or backward by regulating the hormone melatonin. The latest debate is whether or not melatonin supplements could help prevent jet lag--the drowsy, achy feeling you get when "jetting" across time zones.

6. Memory Lane

Some experiences are hard to forget, like perhaps your first kiss. But how does a person hold onto these personal movies? Using brain-imaging techniques, scientists are unraveling the mechanism responsible for creating and storing memories. They are finding that the hippocampus, within the brain's gray matter, could act as a memory box. But this storage area isn't so discriminatory. It turns out that both true and false memories activate similar brain regions. To pull out the real memory, some researchers ask a subject to recall the memory in context, something that's much more difficult when the event didn't actually occur.

5. Brain Teaser

Laughter is one of the least understood of human behaviors. Scientists have found that during a good laugh three parts of the brain light up: a thinking part that helps you get the joke, a movement area that tells your muscles to move, and an emotional region that elicits the "giddy" feeling. But it remains unknown why one person laughs at your brother's foolish jokes while another chuckles while watching a horror movie. John Morreall, who is a pioneer of humor research at the College of William and Mary, has found that laughter is a playful response to incongruities--stories that disobey conventional expectations. Others in the humor field point to laughter as a way of signaling to another person that this action is meant "in fun." One thing is clear: Laughter makes us feel better.

4. Nature vs. Nurture
In the long-running battle of whether our thoughts and personalities are controlled by genes or environment, scientists are building a convincing body of evidence that it could be either or both! The ability to study individual genes points to many human traits that we have little control over, yet in many realms, peer pressure or upbringing has been shown heavily influence who we are and what we do.

3. Mortal Mystery

Living forever is just for Hollywood. But why do humans age? You are born with a robust toolbox full of mechanisms to fight disease and injury, which you might think should arm you against stiff joints and other ailments. But as we age, the body's repair mechanisms get out of shape. In effect, your resilience to physical injury and stress declines. Theories for why people age can be divided into two categories: 1) Like other human characteristics, aging could just be a part of human genetics and is somehow beneficial. 2) In the less optimistic view, aging has no purpose and results from cellular damage that occurs over a person's lifetime. A handful of researchers, however, think science will ultimately delay aging at least long enough to double life spans.

2. Deep Freeze

Living forever may not be a reality. But a pioneering field called cryonics could give some people two lives. Cryonics centers like Alcor Life Extension Foundation, in Arizona, store posthumous bodies in vats filled with liquid nitrogen at bone-chilling temperatures of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit (78 Kelvin). The idea is that a person who dies from a presently incurable disease could be thawed and revived in the future when a cure has been found. The body of the late baseball legend Ted Williams is stored in one of Alcor's freezers. Like the other human popsicles, Williams is positioned head down. That way, if there were ever a leak in the tank, the brain would stay submerged in the cold liquid. Not one of the cryopreserved bodies has been revived, because that technology doesn't exist. For one, if the body isn't thawed at exactly the right temperature, the person's cells could turn to ice and blast into pieces.

1. Consciousness

When you wake up in the morning, you might perceive that the Sun is just rising, hear a few birds chirping, and maybe even feel a flash of happiness as the fresh morning air hits your face. In other words, you are conscious. This complex topic has plagued the scientific community since antiquity. Only recently have neuroscientists considered consciousness a realistic research topic. The greatest brainteaser in this field has been to explain how processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences. So far, scientists have managed to develop a great list of questions.

[joeyv821]

O rlY?

[Twisted_Dragon]

This also shows my feelings towards this thread:




I like pictures

[kvk1]

Tight.

[sup_builder2]

Originally Posted by Twisted_Dragon

This also shows my feelings towards this thread:
[/IMG]

I like pictures

You are 16, only have 91 posts, have 1 rep, AND posted Colin in my thread. Guess what? NEGGED!

Anyways, I had heard of most of these mysteries before but it's still amazing how we still have no clue about them. Just shows how complex our brain is. I seriously can't wait to start doing my own research in one or more of these fields.

[muscleman420]

i started laughing uncontrollably during number 5. any explanation Einstein?

[muscleman420]

Originally Posted by sup_builder2

You are 16, only have 91 posts, have 1 rep, AND posted Colin in my thread. Guess what? NEGGED!

Anyways, I had heard of most of these mysteries before but it's still amazing how we still have no clue about them. Just shows how complex our brain is. I seriously can't wait to start doing my own research in one or more of these fields.

hehehehehehehe

[governator45]

thats pretty sweet. I wonder about a lot of that stuff. LIke how humans store a memory. Some people remember stuff forever. And apparantly the mind has unlimited storing capacity.

[Mikeo]

Thanks for the read, but it looks like it was made for children (no offence)

[sup_builder2]

Originally Posted by muscleman420

i started laughing uncontrollably during number 5. any explanation Einstein?

I started laughing at your post. I think my neuron-firing mechanism is messed up!

Originally Posted by governator45

thats pretty sweet. I wonder about a lot of that stuff. LIke how humans store a memory. Some people remember stuff forever. And apparantly the mind has unlimited storing capacity.

Hmm unlimited storing capacity? Never heard of that. I do believe it might be true though. Our "memory" is probably composed of different cells organized in a certain way. Maybe if the need arises for more storage space, the brain generates more cells. Eventually your brain gets bigger and a bigger.

[Iraq Attaq]

Originally Posted by Mikeo

Thanks for the read, but it looks like it was made for children (no offence)

This coming from a guy who has 'Likes boobies' underneath his screename. lol

[shadowwalker021]

Originally Posted by sup_builder2

http://www.livescience.com/health/to...themind-1.html

10. Sweet Dreams

In general, scientists agree that dreaming happens during your deepest sleep, called Rapid Eye Movement (REM).

hmm i thought stage 4 was the deepest?

[sup_builder2]

Originally Posted by shadowwalker021

hmm i thought stage 4 was the deepest?

Well they say stage 3 and 4 are "deep sleep" stages, but I'm guessing REM sleep (stage 5) is the deepest.

Stage 4:


REM:


You can see there is less activity during REM sleep.

[Super Man]

2. Deep Freeze

Living forever may not be a reality. But a pioneering field called cryonics could give some people two lives. Cryonics centers like Alcor Life Extension Foundation, in Arizona, store posthumous bodies in vats filled with liquid nitrogen at bone-chilling temperatures of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit (78 Kelvin). The idea is that a person who dies from a presently incurable disease could be thawed and revived in the future when a cure has been found. The body of the late baseball legend Ted Williams is stored in one of Alcor's freezers. Like the other human popsicles, Williams is positioned head down. That way, if there were ever a leak in the tank, the brain would stay submerged in the cold liquid. Not one of the cryopreserved bodies has been revived, because that technology doesn't exist. For one, if the body isn't thawed at exactly the right temperature, the person's cells could turn to ice and blast into pieces.

wtf, we can freeze em but can't unthaw em?

[Iron Magyar]

Usually it will be the immature 12 year old jackasses posting up colin.
Interesting read.



If the science to thaw human bodies from cryonics hasn't been discovered, what made us so hastily start freezing bodies, knowing it may not work?

[Stalwart Steve]

Originally Posted by Twisted_Dragon

I like pictures

Haha, it's Raistlin Majere.

And these things aren't a mystery to me, just ask me about any of them.

[Twisted_Dragon]

Well I read it and thought the deep freeze one was the most interesting but at the end of the day progress in all of these theories is low and it will take a while for them to develop, keep me posted.

[V]

I am fascinated by dreams, I'm listening to an audio book right now called "Man and his symbols" by Carl Jung, and his whole theory is that dreams is the uncouncious communicating with the concious and that dreams always have a meaning, but it's very personal and very hard to analyze because everything in a dream is a symbol.

[Vitamin C]

Originally Posted by Super Man

wtf, we can freeze em but can't unthaw em?

yeah, sucks. stupid scientists.

besides, it said they're frozen "posthumously" which means after they are already dead...

... but Mel Gibson was alive when he did his and he was able to come back.

Didn't think of that one, did we Mr. PhD-from-Harvard?

[Vitamin C]

Originally Posted by V

I am fascinated by dreams, I'm listening to an audio book right now called "Man and his symbols" by Carl Jung, and his whole theory is that dreams is the uncouncious communicating with the concious and that dreams always have a meaning, but it's very personal and very hard to analyze because everything in a dream is a symbol.

x2

plus, adding to the complexity is the fact that the symbols are relative to the person dreaming them.

[Iron Magyar]

Originally Posted by Vitamin C

yeah, sucks. stupid scientists.

besides, it said they're frozen "posthumously" which means after they are already dead...

... but Mel Gibson was alive when he did his and he was able to come back.

Didn't think of that one, did we Mr. PhD-from-Harvard?

Mel Gibson was cryogenically frozen??

[Buff Matt]

DMT produces dreams, and the images people tell you they see when having a near death experience. It's also a drug you can buy and smoke..that **** will **** ya up more than anything for a good minute son. A good minute. It's very expensive though.

[sup_builder2]

There's another interesting thing I found: Memory transplant
I know it's been posted before on this forum but in case some people didn't know about it:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?doc...ory+transplant
It's a 45 min long video, but the basic point is that some people who have had heart transplants reported that their taste buds, likes, dislikes, etc changed afterwards.
One lady said that after the transplant she dreamed of her donor and found out his name in the dream. She then contacted the donor office and confirmed that the name she heard in the dream was actually name of the person who donated the heart to her.
I think heart might have some memory itself that is used to store information that people access the most during their daily life.

Originally Posted by Stalwart Steve

Haha, it's Raistlin Majere.

And these things aren't a mystery to me, just ask me about any of them.

Hmm, so you understand why they happen? For, why is it that we age? How can we stop it?

[klax410]

Its stuff like this that makes me wonder why some people don't believe in a supreme being. We are way too advanced to have just evolved from a ****ing worm.