Heavenly Minded and Earthly Good
Many experiments have shown that neurons changed in an inattentive experience–surfing the Internet, flipping stations, or checking Facebook, etc.–revert to their original state shortly thereafter. Lasting change requires the kind of attention that many of us find difficult.
by Rob Moll • The Behemoth
The brain is commonly said to contain around 100 billion neurons (though some recent research suggests it may be only 84 billion). Each neuron—or nerve cell—is connected to a thousand of its fellow neurons. So this gives the brain about 84–100 trillion connections between neurons. If neurons were the size of dollar bills, 100 trillion of them sewn together would make a carpet covering Texas and California combined. That’s a lot of neurons in a relatively small space.
Now consider this: Each of the trillions of connections between neurons can have various states. Computers have binary signals, ones and zeroes, on and off, as their basic signaling device. Neural connections may have ten or more possible states at just one of the 84–100 trillion junctures. This is why the brain is considered by many to be the most complex thing in existence. Fully understanding how the brain processes vision—with some neurons dedicated to processing movement, others to color, others to shapes, others to faces—is a task well beyond current science. But what we do know gives us a window into how God may use the brain to transform us.
How the Brain Works
Neurons communicate through a mix of electrical and chemical signals. Those signals can change, increase and decrease in strength, or develop from scratch. One neuron receives signals from another through its dendrites, which have a branch-like structure. They send an electrical impulse up their branches into the body of the neuron and then out through one or more of their many axons, which also look like branches. At the tip of the axon is the synapse, a gap between two nerve cells. Here the electrical signal in the cell changes to a chemical one, with chemicals being released at the tip of the axon to be received into “ports” in the dendrite of the next neuron.
Much of the growth and development in the brain occurs in our synapses as we learn. Most medications that affect mood and behavior change the strength of the chemical signal passing through the synapses. This is where brain chemicals such as dopamine or endorphins come into play.
Using these neurotransmitters (the chemicals that jump across synapses), neurons communicate, and their ability to communicate increases the more they work together. The chemical signals sent from one side of the synapse become stronger, and the receptors on the other side become more sensitive, better able to pick up signals. As we learn a new activity, new information, or even a new dance step, neurons are strengthening these signals between existing nerve cells, and creating new connections with other nerve cells.
The brain does more than passively wait for input from the body and process it. The brain is always on alert, searching for new information and improving how it processes information, learning—and learning how to learn. Our brains will employ a host of neurons to help us learn, but as we gain proficiency, we need fewer nerve cells, which become specialized and fuse more tightly. They create neural pathways, a kind of high-speed internet cable in the brain.
Experience is constantly changing our brains. The cerebral cortex—the wrinkled outer layer of the brain involved in high-level thinking—gets heavier as it learns. It is 5 percent heavier in laboratory mammals raised in learning-enriched environments. Rats that are trained to solve mental problems have higher levels of acetylcholine, a chemical necessary for learning, in their brains. Neurons in those stimulated regions grow larger, developing 25 percent more branches to connect to other neurons. This extra work demands more blood supply. Examinations of human brains after death show that people with more education tend to have larger brains, because of these extra connections. So if the average brain has up to 100 trillion connections, a highly educated one will have many more. This physical learning process means that learning something new doesn’t necessarily require forgetting something old. By increasing the brain’s synaptic connections, we can also increase its capacity.
The brain is in many ways like a muscle, growing stronger the more it’s used. It has a basic structure or mode of operation, but within that framework it’s surprisingly flexible—even into old age and even after diseases hamper its function. While the extreme but necessary neural nimbleness of youth is lost shortly after adolescence, the ability of the brain to change and grow throughout life is only now being understood.
Building Neural Compassion
All this should encourage us; we are not set in stone. We can and do change dramatically. In addition to the change that occurs naturally over time, we can also choose to pursue other changes. Researchers in fact have been looking at how to create the brain changes that lead to other changes we desire.
And yet the brain is a conservative organ. Despite its capacity for change, it only changes significantly under certain conditions. For example, we must monitor closely what we are doing. We do not improve our brains while surfing the Internet, flipping stations, or checking Facebook. Many experiments have shown that neurons changed in an inattentive experience revert to their original state shortly thereafter. Lasting change requires the kind of attention that many of us find difficult.
The attention required in spiritual practices like deep prayer, contemplation, study, and worship is what the brain needs to grow in lasting ways…
Rob Moll is a Christianity Today editor at large. This article is adapted from his book What Your Body Knows About God (Intervarsity, 2014).
See also
How Stories Change the Brain [Video], by Paul J. Zak, PhD
Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling, by Paul J. Zak, PhD
What’s the Story with “Story?” by James K. A. Smith, PhD
Gut-Level Knowledge: Micro-worldviews, Attachment Theory and the Enneagram, by Gary David Stratton
