Nervous System Power Hour Reading

Rewire Your Brain

Preface and Firing the Right Cells Together

During my power hour reading, I read Rewire Your Brain by John B. Arden, Ph.D. I had read both the Preface of the book and the first chapter, "Firing the Right Cells Together". The preface starts off by stating the concepts of the brain such as neuroplasticity are dramatically evolving each day as we learn more about it. The preface also introduces all the chapters and their subjects, and the one that caught my eye the most was the first chapter, where the concept of neuroplasticity has altered, and how the brain can form and kill both good and bad habits. The author introduces us to an unpopular opinion in the first chapter, that the brain is not "hard-wired" but rather "soft-wired" by experience. It is popular opinion to believe genetics play a role in your brain's development (which they still do), but that genes do not influence our thoughts or feelings. Both thoughts and feelings are actually developed through the subject of nurture vs. nature. The traits develop based off how well we are taken care of as adolescents and the type of environment we mature in. However, the author introduces a new theory, "nurtured nature", in which both nurture and nature correlate with each other rather than against each other. Arden then introduces us to the three cortexes that have the highest influence on us as we develop: prefrontal cortex (PFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and the orbital frontal cortex (OFC). The PFC allows us to act based off a moral system, the DLPFC is involved in critical thinking, attention span, and short term memory, and the OFC helps process emotions in the brain. Lastly, the author introduces the reader to FEED, which supposedly helps rewire the brain. F stands for focus, where we must pay attention to our behavior or memory if we want to reenact it next time. E stands for effort, where we shift our perception to action. E stands for effortlessness, where new behaviors or thoughts take less time and energy to keep it running. Finally there is D, determination, which helps the brain stay in practice. One question I would have for the author is that are there any other methods to rewiring our brain besides FEED, and how? My other question would be why is the corpsus callosum, which connects both hemispheres in the brain and keep the cortexes intact, is bigger in females than it is in males?