近来网上热议海归博士自杀，让大家也开始把注意力转移到抑郁症。科学家们很早以前就发现了脑化学和抑郁症之间的关系。我是学计算机的，以前对这个话题一无所知。在了解脑化学之前，我想先学一学有关大脑的知识。

下面这篇文章很有意思，我把一些自己以前不知道的节选了下来。您可以点击LINK看全文。

Physical Attributes

1.     No pain. There are no pain receptors in the brain, so the brain can feel no pain.

2.     Blood vessels. There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain.

The Developing Brain

14.   Neurons. Neurons develop at the rate of 250,000 neurons per minute during early pregnancy.

15.   Size at birth. At birth, your brain was almost the same size as an adult brain and contained most of the brain cells for your whole life.

16.   Newborn’s growth. A newborn baby’s brain grows about three times its size in the first year.

17.   Stopped growing. Your brain stopped growing at age 18.  

18.   Bilingual brains. Children who learn two languages before the age of five alters the brain structure and adults have a much denser gray matter.

看来我们那些双语的孩子是沾了点光的。

Brain Function

26.   Love hormones and autism. Oxytocin, one of the hormones responsible for triggering feelings of love in the brain, has shown some benefits to helping control repetitive behaviors in those with autism.

27.   Food and intelligence. A study of one million students in New York showed that students who ate lunches that did not include artificial flavors, preservatives, and dyes did 14% better on IQ tests than students who ate lunches with these additives.

吃得健康的人更聪明？

Psychology of the Brain

40.   Tickles. You can’t tickle yourself because your brain distinguished between unexpected external touch and your own touch.

41.   Imaginary playmates. A study from Australia showed that children with imaginary playmates between the ages of 3 and 9 tended to be first-born children.

42.   Physical illness. The connection between body and mind is a strong one. One estimate is that between 50-70% of visits to the doctor for physical ailments are attributed to psychological factors.

43.   Sadness and shopping. Researchers have discovered that those experiencing the blues are more willing to spend more money in an attempt to alleviate their sadness.

Memory

52.   Jet lag. Frequent jet lag can impair your memory, probably due to the stress hormones released.

53.   Estrogen and memory. Estrogen (found in both men and women) has been shown to promote better memory functions.

看来多吃豆腐好处多。

54.   Insulin. Insulin works to regulate blood-sugar in the body, but recently, scientists have discovered that its presence in the brain also helps promote memory.

Dreams and Sleep

62.   Virtually paralyzed. While you sleep, your body produces a hormone that may prevent you from acting out your dreams, leaving you virtually paralyzed.

63.   Snoring. If you are snoring, you are not dreaming.

64.   Dream showings. Japanese researchers have successfully developed a technology that can put thoughts on a screen and may soon be able to screen people’s dreams.

这个听起来挺吓人！

Fun and Interesting Facts

74.   Airplanes and headaches. A study showed a correlation between flying and headaches and states that around 6% of people who fly get headaches brought on by the flight itself.

75.   Juggling. Juggling has shown to change the brain in as little as seven days. The study indicates that learning new things helps the brain to change very quickly.

76.   Blinking. Each time we blink, our brain kicks in and keeps things illuminated so the whole world doesn’t go dark each time we blink (about 20,000 times a day).

77.   Music. Music lessons have shown to considerably boost brain organization and ability in both children and adults.

78.   Ambidexterity. Those who are left-handed or ambidextrous have a corpus collosum (the part of the brain that bridges the two halves) that is about 11% larger than those who are right-handed.

Famous Brains

89.   Albert Einstein. Einstein’s brain was similar in size to other humans except in the region that is responsible for math and spatial perception. In that region, his brain was 35% wider than average.

90.   Daniel Tammet. Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant who, since the age of three when he suffered an epileptic seizure, has been able to perform astounding mathematical computations, knows seven languages, and is developing a language of his own.