Page 44 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

28 • Chapter 2

The time after birth is extremely critical. For the first cou-
ple of years, the child’s brain is most malleable. After ap-
proximately 8 to 10 years of age, the brain is not as adaptable
to change. That is why young children who suffer brain in-
juries recover more quickly and completely than adults with
the same brain injuries. We begin to develop our learning
preferences before we reach school age. We already know
whether we like to learn and how we want to go about it be-
fore we ever reach kindergarten. This is why the quality of
the interactions of the parents or caregivers with the child
are extremely critical to the learning process and the future
success of the student. If you have been successful in learn-
ing in formal school settings, you probably are successful in
real-life settings such as your job. If you have been unsuc-
cessful in learning in the past, or if you are experiencing dif-
ficulty holding on to information from day to day, you can
improve your capabilities. You can literally “change your
mind” and be more efficient and reliable. But assuming you
are an adult, you need to know the facts about how your
brain operates in order to affect the processes. Please keep
reading...

The Adult Brain
By the time the baby becomes an adult, the brain weighs ap-
proximately three pounds. This increase in weight is due to
the increase in neuron size and the tremendous increase in
the number of connections formed among the neurons since
birth. Imagine trying to take billions of neurons formed in
layers and trying to fit them into the skull. It is similar to try-
ing to fit a piece of newspaper into a small box. Crumpling
it in on itself would be a good solution. The layers of neu-
rons form the gray matter and enfold the trillions of axons
passing through the brain and interconnecting the neurons.
The myelin sheaths covering the axons are white; this region
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therefore is described as white matter. The cortex makes up
80 percent of the brain’s volume and is the convoluted mass
normally imagined when the word “brain” is mentioned.