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Neurons Quotes

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Neurons Quotes

“Today, when we look at a brain, we see an intricate network of billions of neurons in constant, crackling communication, a chemical labyrinth that senses the world outside and within, produces love and sorrow, keeps our hearts beating and lungs breathing, composes our thoughts, and constructs our consciousness.”

WorldLooksHeartTodayBrainConsciousnessProduceCommunicationSorrowConstantBillionsSensesBreathingChemicalsOur ThoughtsConstructsLungsIntricateLabyrinthHeart BeatNeuronsHeart Beating
Book:Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--and How it Changed the World
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“Consciousness is somehow a by-product of the simultaneous, high frequency firing of neurons in different parts of the brain. It's the meshing of these frequencies that generates consciousness, just as tones from individual instruments produce the rich, complex, & seamless sounds of a symphony orchestra”

DifferentInspirationIndividualSoundBrainConsciousnessRichProduceProductsInstrumentsComplexesContemplationToneOrchestraSymphonyFrequencyFiringNeuronsSimultaneousSeamlessSymphony Orchestras
Author:Francis Crick
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“The most obvious – and easiest! – way to gain perspective is to put your work away for a while. The truth is, we don’t know how taking a break frees up the mind, but it does: Somehow it freshens our little neurons, or perhaps it prompts the brain to create more cleverness molecules. If you can bear to let a short piece sit a week and a book-length work a month, do so. Longer is fine, too; some authors have abandoned manuscripts for years before unearthing them and realizing, ‘Hey, this isn’t bad,’ and renewing their energy for the project.”

IfsKnowsWayYearsMindLittlesDoeBookEnergyRealizingBrainBreakKnow HowPiecesWeekPerspectiveFineMonthsBearsTruth IsProjectsGainsObviousHeyLengthAbandonedMoleculesClevernessManuscriptsPromptsNeuronsTaking A Break
Author:Elizabeth Sims
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“Keeping a slow hunch alive poses challenges on multiple scales. For starters, you have to preserve the hunch in your own memory, in the dense network of your neurons. Most slow hunches pass in and out of our memory too quickly, precisely because they possess a certain murkiness. You get a feeling that there's an interesting avenue to explore, a problem that might lead you to a solution, but then you get distracted by more pressing matters and the hunch disappears. So part of the secret of hunch cultivation is simple: write everything down.”

WritingMatterFeelingsProblemMightCertainChallengesMemoriesSimpleInterestingSecretAliveSolutionsDisappearScalesPreservesMultipleDistractedAvenuesOur MemoriesCultivationDenseHunchesNeuronsStarters
Author:Steven Johnson
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“Most of the different types of cells in our body die and are replaced every few weeks or months. However, neurons, the primary cell of the nervous system, do not multiply (for the most part) after we are born. That means that the majority of the neurons in your brain today are as old as you are. This longevity of the neurons partially accounts for why we feel pretty much the same on the inside at the age of 10 as we do at age 30 or 77.”

FeelsMeanDifferentBodyAgeTodayDiesBornBrainWeekTypeMonthsAccountsMajorityNervousCellsPrimariesLongevityReplacedNervous SystemNeuronsAge 30
Book:My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
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“The patterns of activity of neurons in sensory areas can be altered by patterns of attention. Experience coupled with attention leads to physical changes in the structure and future functioning of the nervous system. This leaves us with a clear physiological fact…moment by moment we choose and sculpt how our ever-changing minds will work. We choose who we will be in the next moment in a very real sense, and these choices are left embossed in physical form in our material selves.”

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Author:Michael Merzenich
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“My mitochondria comprise a very large proportion of me. I cannot do the calculation, but I suppose there is almost as much of them in sheer dry bulk as there is the rest of me. Looked at in this way, I could be taken for a very large, motile colony of respiring bacteria, operating a complex system of nuclei, microtubules, and neurons for the pleasure and sustenance of their families, and running, at the moment, a typewriter.”

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Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“There is one brain organ that is optimised for understanding and articulating logical processes and that is the outer layer of the brain, called the cerebral cortex. Unlike the rest of the brain, this relatively recent evolutionary development is rather flat, only about 0.32 cm (0.12 in) thick and includes a mere 6 million neurons. This elaborately folded organ provides us with what little competence we do possess for understanding what we do and who we do it.”

LittlesProcessUnderstandingBrainMillionsDevelopmentMereProgrammingFlatsLogicalThickOrgansLayersCompetenceCerebralNeuronsArticulating
Author:Ray Kurzweil
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“It's this expandable capacity to represent reasons that we have that gives us a soul. But what's it made of? It's made of neurons. It's made of lots of tiny robots. And we can actually explain the structure and operation of that kind of soul, whereas an eternal, immortal, immaterial soul is just a metaphysical rug under which you sweep your embarrassment for not having any explanation.”

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Author:Daniel Dennett
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“If my dramatic career doesn't work out, I will go on to research and find cures for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's and other motor neuron diseases. It's a very exciting field of research. But I'd like to continue in drama, so it wouldn't be very smart of me if I blew this amazing opportunity with an inappropriate lifestyle.”

IfsOpportunityCareersFieldsGoes OnDramaDiseaseSmartResearchExcitingWork OutLifestyleCuresDramaticMotorInappropriateAlzheimerVery SmartNeuronsAlzheimer'sParkinsonParkinson'sAmazing Opportunities
Author:Freddie Stroma
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“It might be thought the height of poor taste to ascribe good fortune to a healthy man with a young family struck down at the age of sixty by an incurable degenerative disorder from which he must shortly die. But there is more than one sort of luck. To fall prey to a motor neuron disease is surely to have offended the Gods at some point, and there is nothing more to be said. But if you must suffer thus, better to have a well-stocked head.”

IfsMenWellsSaidMightAgeYoungSufferingDiesFallPoorHealthyTasteDiseaseLuckFortuneBe GoodHeightDisorderSixtyOffendedPreyGood FortuneMotorNeuronsPoor Taste
Author:Tony Judt
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“For me, consciousness is the most interesting unsolved problem of science, and, in fact, we may never know what it is about a particular arrangement of neurons that gives rise to consciousness. Our consciousness, like the air we breathe or like the passage of time, is central to our existence as intelligent beings.”

KnowsGivingMayFactsProblemInterestingExistenceConsciousnessAirParticularIntelligentBreathePassagesArrangementsMost InterestingPassage Of TimeNeuronsUnsolved Problems
Author:Alan Lightman
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“The structure of the human brain is enormously complex. It contains about 10 billion nerve cells (neurons), which are interlinked in a vast network through 1,000 billion junctions (synapses). The whole brain can be divided into subsections, or sub-networks, which communicate with each other in a network fashion. All this results in intricate patterns of intertwined webs, networks of nesting within larger networks.”

MindHumansPhilosophyWholeBodyResultsBrainPsychologyFashionStructureMedicineComplexesPatternsCommunicateBillionsSensesCellsNervesDividedIntricateHuman BrainSomaNeuronsIntertwinedSynapsesJunction
Author:Fritjof Capra
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