Voila:
Filed under: Non Daily Happenings
December 13, 2008 • 2:09 pm 0
another view of recent conclusions form neuroscience experiments
I discover all sorts of things in my RSS reader and this particular article attracted my attention due to the shocking title: “Poor Children’s Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows”.
Makes you go ‘Oh my God, save them, I’ll donate, I promise!”. But anyway, I looked into more than just the title and this is what I found:
“The researchers discovered a dramatic difference in the response of the prefrontal cortex not only when an unexpected image flashed on the screen, but also when children were merely watching the upright triangles waiting for a skewed triangle to appear. Those from low socioeconomic environments showed a lower response to the unexpected novel stimuli in the prefrontal cortex that was similar, Kishiyama said, to the response of people who have had a portion of their frontal lobe destroyed by a stroke.”
Now… this may just be me, but this how I see it: a bunch of scientist flashed moving pictures at a small horde of 9-10 year-olds and the one from the poorer families didn’t exactly hurry to react to them. Which should apparently mean they have lower brain activity. Um… wrong! How about kids from underprivileged families just… don’t care about your moving triangles?! How about you show them a giant Mars bar? See if their brain activity improves there?
I do know that these people supposedly know what they’re doing. But it just seems reasonable to assume that… sometimes lack of creativity and early response to stimuli can come from lack of motivation. Extended to a general lack of hope, even in the case of children that we’ve gotten used to see as the great optimists of the universe. Maybe they’re not doing well in school and being poor has something to do with it, but before thinking that it’s damaged their brains isn’t it in plain sight that they’ve simply been raised with and under a different perspective? One that may very well limit not speed but the will to respond to whatever people unable to really help you may ask.
And for things that seem to not be affecting us personally, here’s what’s been going on:
Filed under: Laid about opinions, Life teaches us..., Non Daily Happenings, Of the immediate real world, The times , development, motivation, poverty, study
June 16, 2008 • 8:35 pm 1
there’s something I’d like you to see
this time in practice, the good side of it really
Do us both a favor and check this out. Not just because I’m sleeping with one of the organizers, but I’ve been to their events. There’s a good vibe to them.
It’s one of those shiny happy people dancing, drinking a bit too much and starting on chocolate cravings for various reasons.
Yes, Suburbia ain’t exactly the most positive of places, but you’re smart enough to know that the people inside it can very well turn that around.
Filed under: Non Daily Happenings , events, music, outings
