Here’s a book that kills off all the brain mythology, shows us how to build a “super brain,” addresses Alzheimer’s and speaks truth to Stupid, all in one fell swoop. Rudy Tanzi and Deepak Chopra’s new book, Super Brain, belongs on every desk. Tanzi, Harvard’s Professor of Neurology and director of the Genetics and Aging Unit at Mass General is joined by the well-known Chopra in a smart manual for relating to your brain in a new way.
The prevailing wisdom is that an individual’s intelligence, his or her brainpower, is a stable, static attribute that cannot grow or be developed. It’s all a matter of genetics and heredity—a roll of the dice. And that, we are told, is the key reason that people plateau in their jobs and professions, and lose out to the more intelligent. NONSENSE!!
Tanzi and Chopra challenge conventional wisdom and a lot more with their new book. Challenging five major brain myths, they point out how the new, new neuroscience offers a phenomenal world for both our health and business organizations. Although the first myth is only indirectly related to business, the rest have fairly direct relationships with productivity, development and career success. Here then, are the five major myths, along with personal implications growing out of the research.
Myth 1. The injured brain cannot heal itself. Odd that although science has known for several hundred years that nerves outside the brain could regenerate themselves, scientists could not believe that nerves (neurons) inside the brain could regenerate. In the 1770s, Cruikshank found that peripheral nerves could regenerate. If you cut your finger and lose a sense of feeling, you know that the numbness will go away. Nerve regeneration has taken place. We now know as a result of battlefield injuries that the brain can remap and remodel its connections. Not as robustly as peripheral nerves, but still it’s very much in the realm of possibility. Tanzi has found that such neuroplasticity (the regeneration of nerves) can be triggered even in early Alzheimer’s destruction of brain cells.
Myth 2. The brain’s hardwiring cannot be changed. Today’s research reveals that though the brain has circuitry, the bottom line is that it has no “wires”; the circuits are made of living tissue. Brains are incredibly resilient. Neuroplasticity makes development of thoughts, emotions and actions possible in any direction. Extensive research supports rejects the notion of hardwiring. Stroke patients, for example, are not stuck with the damage caused by a broken blood vessel or clot. Indeed, neighboring cells can compensate, maintaining neural circuits.
The idea of hardwiring is used both negatively and positively in business. Negatively, managers may refer to a person as hardwired and unable to change or adapt to differing needs. Positively, the term is used to refer to the expertise of an individual. A manager may say, for example, that John’s analytical skills are hardwired and he can be counted on for excellent problem solving. All hardwiring can be changed. It’s just a matter of learning.
Myth 3. Aging in the brain is inevitable and irreversible. The conventional knowledge is that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Systematic research puts a new look on aging. As the authors clearly state, no single aspect of aging is inevitable. For any function, mental or physical, you can find people who improve over time. There are ninety-year-old stockbrokers who conduct complex transactions with memories that have improved over time.
Getting lazy and apathetic about learning inevitably results in adhering to the norm. But fortunately, conscious choices can be made. And. . . you can decide to follow a learning curve upward.
The research on adult learning finds that most professionals stop significant learning about six years into their career. That means if you’re not learning and growing, you’ve got a learning problem. Not an aging problem.
Myth 4. The millions of brain cells lost every day cannot be replaced. Instead, we now know that several thousand new nerve cells are born in the brain every day, particularly in the area of the short-term memory. Physical exercise and stimulating environments stimulate the growth of new cells. We can safely discard the myth of brain cell loss. Even alcohol use only kills a minimal number of cells.
Positively, this is a major argument for regular project, job and even career change. Most professionals have their job well in hand within two to three years. At that point, smart professionals move on, learn and grow. Death is staying in the same job long-term.
Myth 5. The primitive emotions of fear, anger, jealousy, etc., overrule the rational brain. Undoubtedly instinctive reactions such as fear and desire are instinctively programmed from the womb. Some psychologists find the argument that certain people are programmed to become antisocial, criminals, rage-aholics, just as others are programmed for anxiety, depression and schizophrenia.
But those arguments overlook the fact that the brain is multi-dimensional. The experiences which will dominate are neither automatic nor genetically programmed. A proclivity for one experience or another is not determinative. And we don’t need to be ruled by negative experiences or negative emotions.
Workers, for example, who are debilitated by feedback can learn to manage feedback for their own good. Even Freud believed that civilization depends on our ability to override primitive urges and drives so that higher values can prevail. As Tanzi and Chopra argue so well, freedom of choice is not prohibited by preset programming.
There’s a lot of the victim in many professionals, often tied to these myths. But that’s a nutty, destructive approach to reality. Much of our perceived limitations have been shown to be wrong-headed. And now there’s systematic, thorough scientific research detailing those myths. And exploding them.
Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Tanzi, Super Brain. (Harmony Books: New York), 2012.
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