Your brain is fantastic! It is capable of amazing feats from dreaming to sensing to thinking. The average human brain contains about 100 billion neurons and can wire itself in 10 to the power of 1,000,000 different ways (that’s 10 followed by a million zeroes). All of this and it only weighs about 3 pounds! In this activity, you’ll explore some of the mysteries of this outstanding organ. Let’s do a little Brain Science!
Here’s What You Need
- A chair
Here’s What You Do
Sit comfortable in the chair with both feet on the floor. Lift your right foot off the floor and begin to make clockwise circles with it above the ground. Keep going. Don’t stop. Now, while doing this, draw the number 6 in the air with your right hand. Look at your right foot. Did it change direction? That’s your brain at work!
The Brain Science
The reason that this is tough (not impossible) to do is because of the way your brain works. Our brains are responsible for sending signals to our muscles to make our bodies move. However, the brain doesn’t send a signal to a single muscle in the body. Instead, the brain sends a signal from a cluster of cells to a general group of muscles on the same side of the body. For example, if the brain wants to move the right arm, it doesn’t just switch on muscles to move the right arm. Instead, it switches on muscles that control the the right arm and the right leg. So basically, your brain is making it easier for your leg to do the same thing that your arm is doing. This makes things like walking and running easier for us to do. The brain can control a group of muscles instead of focusing on the movement of each and every little muscle of the body (which would take a lot more concentration and effort).
In this little activity, you ask your right arm to do one thing and your right leg to do something else. This is challenging (but not impossible) for the brain to do. The brain basically has to send a signal from one group of cells to control the arm and send a signal from a another group of cells to control the leg. This is not the way the brain usually works, so it takes some practice. However, people with great control of their bodies (e.g. martial artist like Jackie Chan) use training to make this type of movement possible.
Now, here is something really interesting. You don’t even have to move your hand. Try the experiment again. This time, think about drawing the number 6 in the air. Your foot will still change directions. For even more fun, try drawing the number 8. Redraw the number over and over in a continuous motion and your foot will keep switching back and forth.
Isn’t the brain amazing?
