Brain Talk

This afternoon, Dr Barr (Mr Mac's wife) visited Sunnyhills School to share some really interesting facts about the brain with us.

The brain is... 

• about the size of a small cauliflower and floats in liquid, within the skull
• approximately the same weight as 3 blocks of butter - about 1.5kg
• bigger than the brain of animals which are the same body size, e.g. chimpanzee

Different parts of the brain have different roles, e.g. the frontal lobe tells you when to move, while the hippocampus keeps memory (it backs up when we're asleep - just like a computer!). Other areas help with planning, senses and hearing.

While your body feels pain, your brain doesn't. So if you had brain surgery you would only need anesthetic while the surgeon cuts through the skin.  This is really useful so the surgeon doesn't damage a part of the brain that is being used. Dr Barr showed us a video of a man playing the guitar while he was undergoing brain surgery because they didn't want to damage that part of the brain that he needed for playing the guitar.  Amazing!

This is one of the videos that Dr Barr shared with us to help understand the brain's functions:

https://youtu.be/4Dcj6nYcbLI

Dr Barr shared some awesome words, e.g. neuroplasticity, electroencephalography, and neurons  These will certainly help to improve our scores next time we play Scrabble :)

There is so much to learn about the brain.  Maybe in the future, one of the 5Stars will be a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Watch this space!