BRAIN RULES: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, & School

MICDS Coffee Klatch November 13, 2008 Mike Cerkovnik and Vicki Thurman

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How do we learn? Molecular biologist Dr. John Medina describes in 12 rules what scientists know
about how our brain works. His book is fascinating, informative and full of humor.

EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.
The brain represents only about 2% of most peoples body weight, yet it accounts for about
20% of the bodys total energy usage.
Our brains were built for walking---12 miles a day.
Aerobic exercise just twice a week halves your risk of general dementia. It cuts your risk of
Alzheimers by 60 percent.

SURVIVAL | Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too.
We use symbolic reasoningwe are human because we can fantasize.
Our ability to learn has deep roots in relationships.
Ability to understand each other is our chief survival tool- Theory of Mind
The brain was designed to solve problems related to survival in an unstable outdoor
environment and to do so in nearly constant motion.

WIRING | Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.
No two peoples brains store the same information in the same way in the same place. -
Brains do not perceive a scene as a whole they break it into smaller pieces and store the
information in separate places.
Bilingual people dont even store their Spanish and their English in similar places.
What you do & learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like-it literally rewires it.
The brain metaphor for learning looks more like a map with highways and lesser associated
roads based on use and meaning.
We are hardwired to be flexible.
The brains in wild animals are 15-30 percent larger than those of their tame, domestic
counterparts.

ATTENTION | Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things.
Youve got seconds to grab someones attention and only 10 minutes to keep it. Bait the
hook every ten minutes.
Brain pays attention to emotions, threat, and sex: You can grab attention by telling narratives
(stories) or creating events rich in emotion.
Emotional arousal helps the brain learn. Previous experience predicts where we should pay
attention.
Emotionally charged events persist much longer in our memories and are recalled with
greater accuracy than neutral memories.
Brain is wired to look for patterns it has seen before - IRSYMCAWTFIBMKGBFBI
The brain can focus on only one thing at a time: no multitasking. The brain is a sequential
processor---do one thing at a time.


MICDS Coffee Klatch November 13, 2008 Mike Cerkovnik and Vicki Thurman

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Three separate networks in the brain control attention: Alerting (scan), Orienting (orient to
stimuli), and Executive (control what we do next) networks.
The brain likes hierarchy----providing a preview of the big idea or concept, the gist will
improve understanding.

SHORT-TERM MEMORY | Rule #5: Repeat to remember.
Spaced learning is greatly superior to massed learning.
Memory is probably encoded in the brain more like a blender with a lid off than any other
possible metaphor. Memories are distributed all over the surface of the cortex.
If you are trying to drive information into someone elses brain, make sure they know what it
means. Constantly pepper main learning points with meaningful experiences.
You can improve your chances of remembering something if you reproduce the environment
in which you first put it into your brain.
Forget 90% of what learned in a class in 30 days.
If you do not repeat initial information presented, listeners will lose it within 30 seconds. When
repeated, it moves to working memory where it will stay for another hour or so. If not
repeated during that time, it will not move to long-term memory and will disappear.

LONG-TERM MEMORY | Rule #6: Remember to repeat.
Thinking or talking about an event immediately after it has occurred enhances memory for
that event.
If you have only one week to study for a final, and only 10 times when you can hit the subject,
it is better to space out the 10 repetitions during the week than to squeeze them all together.
Long-term memories are formed in a two-way conversation between the hippocampus and
the cortex, until the hippocampus breaks the connection and the memory is fixed in the cortex-
--which can take years.
If someone misses one piece of information in the big picture, it impacts their ability to
understand new information related to it. Therefore, repetition, repetition, repetition is key.
Elaborate encoding is important relate the topic to a special event or emotion provoking
situation for deeper (semantic) coding vs. shallow (structural) coding.

SLEEP | Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.
Sleep interruption = lost memory - Loss of sleep hurts attention, executive function, working
memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, and even motor dexterity.
People vary in how much sleep they need and when they prefer to get it, but the biological
drive for an afternoon nap is universal. Morning vs. evening chronotypes may be embedded in
our DNA due to ancestors having to stay up all night for protection.
REM = replaying of information during the day (consolidating the information for future use)
Sleep study on NASA pilots: 26 minute nap = 34% more attention, 40 minute nap = impact on
attention lasted more than 6 hours.



MICDS Coffee Klatch November 13, 2008 Mike Cerkovnik and Vicki Thurman

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STRESS | Rule #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way.
Bodies can only handle stress for 30 seconds - Your bodys defense system----the release of
adrenaline and cortisol---is built for an immediate response to serious but passing danger, such
as a saber-toothed tiger. Chronic stress, such as hostility at home, dangerously deregulates a
system built only to deal with short-term responses.
Under chronic stress, adrenaline creates scars in your blood vessels that can cause a heart
attack or stroke, and cortisol damages the cells of the hippocampus, crippling your ability to
learn and remember.
Chronic stress causes deregulation and can cause brain to atrophy (damages cognition,
motivation, memory, immune system, executive function, etc.)

SENSORY INTEGRATION | Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses.
Our senses evolved to work together---vision influencing hearing, for example---which means
that we learn best if we stimulate several senses at once.
The brain seems to rely partly on past experiences in deciding how to combine these signals,
so two people can perceive the same event very differently.
Multisensory environment is important.

VISION | Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.
We see with our brains.
Vision is probably the best single tool we have for learning anything.
Vision is by far our most dominant sense, taking up half our brains resources.
We learn and remember best through pictures, not through written or spoken words.
When you hear information remember 10%; when you see information only - remember 35%;
when you hear AND see information, remember 65%.

GENDER | Rule #11: Male and female brains are different.
Men and women respond differently to acute stress: Women activate the left hemispheres
amygdala and remember the emotional details. Men use the right amygdala and get the gist.
X chromosome encodes nearly 45x more proteins Therefore, when developing in utero,
womens brains can choose between father and mothers chromosomes creating bigendered
brains. Mens chromosomes always come from their mother so less selective process when
developing.

EXPLORATION | Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.
Babies are the model of how we learn---not by passive reaction to the environment but by
active testing through observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion.
Some parts of our adult brains stay as malleable as a babys, so we can create neurons and
learn new things throughout our lives.
Error prediction is important