揭穿：我們只用了大腦的1/10？

Modern life, with all its digital gadgets and multitasking, is more than a little taxing on the brain. It would be extremely convenient if each of us had a secret reserve of brain power lying in wait, summonable with the right supplements or enough meditation or sleep. We've all heard the rumor that humans use only 10 percent of their brains, but according to science, this is hardly the case. Though the myth won't die, neuroscience proves that you use most of your brain most of the time.

現(xiàn)代生活充斥著各種電子物件、多任務(wù)進(jìn)程，這些都?xì)w功于我們大腦的思考與創(chuàng)造。如果我們每個(gè)人的大腦仍有部分秘密資源未被開發(fā)，在正確的供給或合適的媒介或充足的睡眠下，可以喚醒這部分資源，那將使我們的世界更為便捷。我們都曾聽說過這樣一個(gè)謠傳：人類只開發(fā)了大腦的十分之一。但科學(xué)研究告訴我們，并非如此。盡管謠傳不止，但神經(jīng)科學(xué)證明了，在絕大部分的時(shí)間里，你運(yùn)用了絕大部分的大腦。

Although this "10 percent of your brain" myth has been debunked before, new research via Gizmodo shows that multiple regions of our brains are involved in completing even fairly simple tasks. Researchers from the University of Tübingen in Germany, MIT, and Princeton collaborated on a study titled "Cortical Information Flow During Flexible Sensorimotor Decisions." The results, recently published in premier academic journal Science, indicate that during a motion and color processing task, activity flowed through participants' brains all around 108 electrodes — not limiting itself to discrete regions, or just 10 percent. Though the pattern of motion changed depending on the activity, it was always widespread.

盡管這個(gè)科學(xué)界的都市傳說早已被揭穿了，但一項(xiàng)最新研究顯示，即便是完成非常簡單的任務(wù)，也需要運(yùn)用到大腦的多個(gè)區(qū)域。來自德國的Tübingen大學(xué)、麻省理工學(xué)院、普林斯頓大學(xué)的研究人員們一起合作，完成了一項(xiàng)名為“靈活的感覺運(yùn)動(dòng)決策中的皮質(zhì)信息流”的研究。這項(xiàng)研究最近發(fā)表在了第一學(xué)術(shù)刊物《Science》上，研究結(jié)果表明：在一項(xiàng)運(yùn)動(dòng)和顏色處理的任務(wù)中，神經(jīng)活動(dòng)遍及參與者的整個(gè)大腦(108個(gè)電極都檢測到了)——而非限制在某些不連續(xù)的區(qū)域、或者僅動(dòng)用了10%的區(qū)域。盡管運(yùn)動(dòng)模式有所不同，但總是遍及大腦的。

None of this is to say that certain areas of the brain aren't more implicated in some types of processing than others (there are color-processing parts of the brain, motion-processing parts of the brain, and so on). And we've known since at least Freud (and now also from the behavioral economists) that our brains do some things totally subconsciously too, sometimes including even fairly complicated decision-making.

當(dāng)然，這個(gè)研究并不是想告訴我們，大腦在處理特定類型任務(wù)的時(shí)候，沒有一些特定區(qū)域更為活躍(大腦的確存在顏色處理區(qū)域、運(yùn)動(dòng)處理區(qū)域等等)。我們從弗洛伊德的學(xué)說里得知，我們的大腦會無意識地做一些事情，甚至有時(shí)候包括一些相當(dāng)復(fù)雜的決策。

Still, the world is a complex place, confronting us with mixed stimuli all the time, and it really doesn't make any sense that our brains would have evolved little modules working in complete isolation from one another. If you want your brain to work better, it's not effective to go searching for its non-existent dormant chunks. Instead, eat some brain food, get some sleep, and let your complicated noggin do its already interconnected thing.

然而，世界是復(fù)雜的，我們總是接受著混合類型的刺激。如果我們的大腦只進(jìn)化到運(yùn)用自身的十分之一，而另外十分之九孤立無用，那也太不合理了。如果你希望你的腦子更好使些，而試圖尋找那根本不存在的休眠區(qū)域，這將是徒勞無功的。更好的方法是：吃好，睡好，多用腦。