How Can You Study the Human Mind and Brain? https://nancysbraintalks.mit.edu/topics/how-can-you-study-the-human-mind-and-brain Many ways to understand a mental process Cognition can be studied in many different ways, including introspection, computational theory, measuring behavior, monitoring neural activity, and even disrupting neural activity. What you can learn from studying behavior This talk uses face perception as a case study to illustrate the power of low-tech behavioral methods; observations from reaction and time and accuracy in face perception tasks reveal “signatures” of face recognition (inversion effects, composite effects, part-whole effects) that yield fundamental insights about how we... How do you ask a preverbal infant what she can see? A simple but powerful method called "habituation of looking time" enables developmental psychologists to discover what a preverbal infant sees, understands, and expects What is fMRI? The bare basics on functional MRI, a noninvasive method for measuring neural activity in the human brain with (almost) millimeter resolution. Watch Nancy's brain get zapped with transcranial magnetic stimulation Measuring neural activity (with fMRI, MEG, ERPs, etc) cannot tell you which brain regions or neural responses are necessary for a given aspect of perception or cognition. To find out if a region is necessary, you have to mess with it. One method to do this in humans is transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). What happens when you stimulate the face area? In this astonishing video from Josef Parvizi and Kalanit Grill-Spector at Stanford, you meet a man who has electrodes right on his face area (for medical reasons), and he tells us what he sees when that region of his brain is stimulated.
Neurons and Mannerisms Hereditary physical features can be identified within a family and this is understood as a normal consequence. Mannerisms on the other hand are a function of the brain and yet mannerisms can be hereditary. Is it possible for neuron function to be hereditary? It appears so. The mind, body and soul may not be as exclusive as we once thought.
The biggest problem with the brain is its surroundings, as the brain is like a sponge, soaking up all that it comes into contact with. Relocating the brain to a proper surrounding will do more for it that any form of therapy or chemical interference. The other big problem, of course, is recognizing the difference between good and bad surroundings, and having the ability to relocate the brain as required.