the process of brain

why important of brain for human

introduction of brain

We know more about the brain today than ever before, and a perfect storm of events is supporting even more and better brain knowledge and better brains.

There is a tremendous surge of research on the brain and tremendous pressure to learn more, and learn it faster, from an aging generation with the will and the means to force these advances: boomers.

The first of the boomers, the largest ever demographic group and (even with the recession) the best off financially, are hitting old age, and a group that never took no for an answer is not going gently into that good night; instead, it is kicking, screaming, and raging for a better aging brain. Billions are being expended on brain research, especially in areas related to dementia, memory loss, and other conditions of aging.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) alone spent $5.2 billion, nearly 20 percent of its total budget, on brain-related projects in 2008. With this expanded funding, researchers are making sweeping inroads in both understanding and manipulating the brain.

We've learned more about the brain in the past fifty years than the preceding fifty thousand, and the cooperation among the sciences over the next two decades may even surpass that record. Brain research has moved beyond psychology, psychiatry, and neurology, and married the so-called wet and hard sciences: biology, biochemistry, and chemistry now cohabit with physics, engineering, electronics, computer science, material sciences, statistical analysis, and even information technologies, with advances

 in technology contributing ever-better, smaller, faster, and smarter devices and techniques. Scientists and futurists are predicting what will have changed by mid century:

• Computer chips or mini-microprocessors in the brain will expand memory; control symptoms of brain disease, from Parkinson's disease to depression and anxiety; and wireless receive and transmit information so that you won't need a cell phone or a computer to stay in touch.

• Brain surgery will be a thing of the past except in the most severe cases. Advanced neurhimaging will identify mental illness and brain disease before symptoms show and in general be used to "read" minds and predict and control behavior. Microscopic robots—nanobots—will enter your bloodstream to diagnose and repair brain damage. Protein molecules will travel your brain in a similar way to turn on or off brain cells or genes responsible for brain diseases.

• Neurohenhancers from drugs to digital devices will boost memory and mind function in healthy people—and equally powerful drugs will help block painful or traumatic memories. That could mean growing new brain cells to replace neurons damaged by disease or slipping your kids a memory pill while they cram for Advanced Placement calculus.

• Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, and perhaps even mental retardation will be preventable, curable, and even reversible in many people.

• Those who are paralyzed will regain limb and spinal cord function, and thought-driven spare parts will abound, from prosthetic limbs and vision with lifelike function to prosthetic brain chips to store data and perhaps even duplicate neural networks.