When we see a real human brain some of us usually become squeamish when we see the slimy, glistening folds of its structure. The part of the brain has all these folds are the cortex. What we don’t know is that these folds are significant in how our brains function. It is believed that the cortex is what makes the mammalian brain higher functioning, or what we like to call more space to store intellectual identification, as compared to other animals’ brains. Researchers from the Washington University in St. Louis found that the brain and the heart are shaped similarly during the development of the human embryo.
Since the folding of the brain is so important, what happens if the brain develops abnormal folds? Researchers illustrate this using a compound trinocular microscope, which allows a second person to view what the primary person sees on a regular compound microscope. A compound trinocular microscope is attached to a laptop computer or LCD screen via a USB cable to encourage other people to view as well. Compound trinocular microscopes are especially useful in the healthcare industry as well as education. Doctors, teachers and researchers use the compound trinocular microscope to project the image they are viewing. In the view, abnormal brain folds are believed to cause neurological problems like schizophrenia. The smoothness of the cortex is also linked to brains that exhibit severe retardation and autism. Dystonia, a disorder that causes involuntary muscle spasms and twisting of the limbs, is also believed to be caused by the inappropriate connectivity in the brain and may affect the folds of the cortex. With the connections of brain folding to these neurological disorders, researchers hope to better understand the associations so that the prevention of such diseases may be implemented.
But not all abnormal folding causes neurological disorders and diseases. Some abnormal folding can contribute to what makes a person a genius. That’s right, a genius, and not mentally retarded. It has been reported that certain folds of Albert Einstein’s brain was missing, and because of this anomaly, his mathematical reasoning seemed to be higher than most of us normal people.
The research was presented by Gang Xu, a biomedical engineering researcher of the Washington University at the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting on Los Angeles. They reported using mouse and ferret brains for the study. Ferret brains are the smallest mammals with a folded brain, like humans, but unlike humans, whose brain folding occurs in utero, ferret brains begin to fold after they are born. They tried to find a commonality in the developmental structure of the heart looping and brain folding. This is evident by the small amount of processes that cells undergo inside a developing embryo. The developing heart and brain seem to have the basic tools of development but somehow the mechanics how they are structured seem to differ. Although the findings are still preliminary, it paves the way for further research about higher brain functioning and the possible prevention of neurological diseases.