By Dr. Yuhong Dong | The Epoch Times
Over the past few years, a host of discoveries have shattered people’s notions of how the human brain works. For example, medical experts have discovered that certain individuals with a severe lack of grey cerebral matter—so-called “brainless guys”—have normal or super-normal intelligence; and that animal brains recovered four hours after death. Therefore, several scientists have introduced the concept of “the invisible brain” to decipher those mysteries.
Besides, the brain’s energy properties are gaining increased attention from the medical world.
So, what implications do those new discoveries or theories carry for our benefit? Could they help boost our health or cure our illnesses?
‘Brainless Guys’: Where Does Their Wisdom Come From?
In 1980, Science cited a “brainless” case that was witnessed by John Lorber, a professor of neurology at the University of Sheffield in England. A university student showed excellent academic grades, an IQ of 126, an honorary degree in mathematics, and normal social networking skills, with a head slightly larger than normal. Surprisingly, a brain-scanning test showed that the student’s brain was just about 1mm thick while normal brain tissue is about 4.5cm thick. Within his skull was largely cerebrospinal fluid, which is commonly known as hydrocephalus. [1]
This case is not alone. As a hydrocephalus specialist, Lorber systematically collected more than 600 cases of the condition, half of which were so severe that their brain volume was less than five percent of the normal standard, but with an IQ of more than 100.
So, where does the wisdom of “brainless guys” exactly come from?
Near-death experience research led scientists to a discovery that besides the material body visible to the naked eye, there is another invisible part of the physical body. The latter can be set free from the material body while a person is in a near-death state.
For scientists, that offers a hint that the human brain also includes an unseen structure—the invisible or deep brain. Many scientists have referred to this concept.
Patrick Wall, professor of anatomy at the University of London, says, “For hundreds of years neurologists have assumed that all that is dear to them is performed by the cortex, but it may well be that the deep structures in the brain carry out many of the functions assumed to be the sole province of the cortex.”
Norman Geschwind, a neurologist at Harvard University, claims, “Deep structures in the brain are undoubtedly important for many functions.”
David Bowsher, professor of neurophysiology at the University of Liverpool, UK, argues that “the deep structures are almost certainly more important than is currently thought.” [2]
Jay Alfred, an American scholar of quantum neuroscience, also describes people as having an “invisible brain” in his book Brain and Realities. [3]
Apparently, it is no coincidence that scientists voiced the term “the invisible brain” one after another. Cases of brainless people with normal IQs have led to speculation that there may be inextricable ties between the invisible brain and the physical brain.
The invisible brain might determine the functions of its physical counterpart just like behind-the-stage puppeteers manipulating figures to move in traditional Chinese shadow play.
Another question arises, too: If the invisible brain remains undestroyed, can the affected physical brain regenerate?
Yahoo.com reported the real story of a hydrocephalus patient, Noah Wall, on Feb. 20, 2021.
Shelly discovered that her baby developed “hydrocephalus” in her 20th week of pregnancy. After birth, Noah’s brain developed only two percent, the most severe sort of its kind. Doctors opened a hole in his head and installed a drainage device, gradually emptying the fluid.
Follow-up visits showed that Noah’s brain grew to 80% of its normal size at the age of three. Hence doctors called him a “miracle boy.” Currently, Noah receives regular physical therapy, enjoys school, and has made progress in basic skills such as cognition and language. [4]
The fact that the boy’s brain got regenerated prompted speculation that his brain’s deep structures may have remained undamaged.
On the other hand, neural regenerative capacity is often underestimated. In fact, the ability of the brain’s neural stem cells to regenerate is an important condition for maintaining brain plasticity. For “brainless guys,” their neural stem cells in the brain seem to stay dormant. When hydrocephalus-causing agents are removed, neural stem cells may resume their activity: they proliferate, replicate, divide, and then migrate to various parts of the cerebral cortex, helping the brain to return to normal.
Can the Brain Be Revived After Death?
It is an intriguing scientific discovery that animal organs can be revived under given circumstances after the death of their owners.
In 2019, scientists at Yale University published a study relating to pig brain removal four hours post-mortem. Under ex vivo conditions, researchers maintained the complete microcirculation and cellular functions of the pig brains by continuing to replenish nutrients and cleaning metabolic wastes, with the recovery process lasting up to six hours. [5]
The results showed that a vast number of brain cells were still alive one hour after the pigs’ death while nearly all their brain cells were dead 10 hours after death. However, if resuscitation began to intervene four hours post-mortem, six hours later, the number of active pig brain cells bounced back close to that one-hour post-mortem.
The findings toppled a previous well-known claim that the brain’s tolerance to lack of oxygen was only four to six minutes. Such results may suggest that the functions of the invisible brain had not disappeared.
COVID-19 Attacks Our Deep Brain?
For many COVID-19 victims, the pandemic has left them with brain and neurological sequelae, such as dementia and psychiatric disorders, for more than the past two years. Even two years after infection, their risk of incidence remains at a significantly higher level. Why is COVID-19’s damage to the human brain so severe? Is that tied to affecting the invisible brain?
Scientists found the COVID-19 virus can destroy neural stem cells in the human brain. A study showed that less than five percent of the neural stem cell population remained alive three days after infection with the virus. [6]
Another study equated the brain damage by COVID-19 to the worth of 20-year-long aging. [7]
This implies that the virus can directly injure the brain and cause damage to neural stem cells and neural regeneration mechanisms, though the neural regenerative ability is the key to maintaining brain activity.
A likely reason is that the coronavirus has impaired the deeper structures of the brain through certain mechanisms at a more microscopic level. That damage manifests itself in the form of severe impact on nerves and spirituality in the physical body. That explains why the sequelae are so far-reaching and difficult to cure.
As science continues to advance, people may one day identify exactly what damage the coronavirus has caused to the brain and come up with innovative solutions.
New Hint for Treatment: Brain Has Energy Properties
What form does the “invisible brain” take, and how does it affect our physiological functions? Scientists believe the answer perhaps lies in the brain’s “energy properties.”
As Albert Einstein notes, any matter, including the universe and the human brain, has energy properties.
Quantum mechanics is a science that touches on energy and microscopic levels. Currently, scientists also use it to study brain energy, thus creating neural quantum mechanics.
In fact, the scientific community has long reached a consensus on the brain’s energy properties.
Since the 19th century, it has been known that the brain generates an electromagnetic field that arises from the continuous periodic discharging activity of nerve cells in the brain. That electrical activity, when taken as a whole, forms an electromagnetic field in the brain. [8]
The brain’s electromagnetic field can be detected by instruments. In 1929, German physiologist Hans Berger recorded an electrical wave activity from the human skull surface (a discharging process of brain nerve cells), the first published evidence of brainwaves in human history.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) are test methods of measuring brain energy, which also serve as evidence for the existence of brain energy.
Scientists even calculated that a normal brain could produce 10 watts of electricity. If all 10 billion interconnected nerve cells were to discharge simultaneously, the energy would be powerful enough to light up a flashlight. [9]
Scientists collect the electrical activity of the brain’s nerve cells for research and analysis. EEG is an indicator of brain energy in a variety of waveforms shown on instruments. Brainwaves vary with brain energy.
A study has shown that brainwaves are associated with a person’s conscious activity. By frequency magnitude standards, brainwaves broadly fall into five categories. [10]
Beta wave: Released when the brain gets awakened and is active in engaging in mental activity, such as when public speakers, teachers, or talk show hosts are at work. Beta waves feature fast frequency and low amplitude.
Alpha wave: Generated when the brain relaxes after performing a task, such as taking a break from a meeting or walking in a garden. Compared with Beta waves, Alpha waves are slower in frequency and higher in amplitude.
Theta wave: Accompanying times while in a relaxed state of dreaming, sleeping, or emptying one’s mind, or when tasks get auto-piloted and ideas flow freely, as in moments of taking a bath, shaving, or hair-combing.
Compared with Alpha waves, Theta waves are slower in frequency and higher in amplitude.
Delta wave: Occurs during deep, dreamless sleep. Delta waves have the slowest frequency and the greatest amplitude.
However, the most intriguing part of brain waves is the Gamma wave.
Gamma wave: The fastest frequency (up to 32-100 Hz) and smallest amplitude, available when a person is in a highly concentrated state, deep mental peace, and tranquillity. Generally, Gamma waves are rare but are common in advanced, regular meditators, talented musicians, top athletes, those gifted with an extraordinarily retentive memory, and other high achievers in their fields.
Evidently, high Gamma wave activity is critical to maximizing one’s growth potential, mental or spiritual.
Then, how can we significantly boost our Gamma wave activity?
Sitting Meditation Enhances Gamma Waves
A study from Jefferson University found that all three different groups of regular meditators showed higher Gamma wave activity than the non-meditator control group in terms of median 60-110 Hz over parieto-occipital electrodes. [11]
This suggests that regular meditation sessions advance the frequency of Gamma waves and the number of their occurrences.
Additionally, Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at The University of Wisconsin, found after observing Gamma wave activity in Olympic-level meditators that meditators’ brain waves showed consistently powerful Gamma wave patterns, which proved to be a persistent trait, regardless of what they were doing at the time. [12]
In other words, those strong Gamma waves represent not just the state of their brain while in meditation but their daily routine state. Sitting meditation had already changed the status of their brain energy.
Researchers were stunned by this phenomenon they had never seen before. Moreover, they felt their comfortable personalities while interacting with those meditators: open-mindedness, tolerance, and peacefulness.
How do we crack this phenomenon?
We know that regular meditators practice letting go of their usual thoughts and replacing them with a positive, compassionate, and peaceful state of mind. Regularly practicing this way creates a mechanism, which visually manifests itself as a change of the waveforms in the EEG, with decreased Beta waves being replaced by high-energy Gamma waves.
Therefore, those who practice and meditate for years have different thinking abilities and energies and can fundamentally improve the energy state of the brain.
Findings also showed that meditation may have protective effects on the brain, reversing the aging of brain structures, restoring a person’s reaction speed, and improving attentional performance. This can also be interpreted in terms of meditation boosting the brain’s energy. [13]
For example, the brain’s signals travel faster as its energy level rises, which is directly associated with a person’s responsive speed. Attention is also an indicator of the brain’s energy level.
On the other hand, energy and matter are interconvertible. As the energy level of the brain goes up, the structure of matter will change accordingly. For example, neural stem cells may gain an improved ability for regeneration.
Medical Evidence for the Brain’s Energy Properties
Light therapy, a physical treatment acknowledged by modern medicine, uses near-infrared (NIR) light to promote wound healing and reduce the symptoms of chronic diseases.
Some researchers apply NIR to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease by conversing light into energy, which acts on the human brain to produce therapeutic effects. [14]
In 2015, Australian scholars published a study suggesting that NIR light therapy reduced the levels of beta-amyloid plaques and tau protein—pathological proteins specific to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) —in mouse brain tissues and improved cognitive deficits as well.
Additional studies have shown that NIR light improves neurological functions and increases the number of neural progenitor cells (precursors of new neurons) in brain regions such as the hippocampal dentate gyrus and subventricular zone.
These findings left evidence that the brain does have energy and that receiving beneficial energy can also have therapeutic effects.
Back to cases of brainless guys, scientists speculate that the brain visible to the naked eye is only a carrier and that humans also have an invisible, microscopic, and deep brain. Now, the fact that the COVID-19 virus has such prolonged damage to the brain leads to an assumption that the invisible brain at the microscopic level may have been damaged, which in turn impairs the macroscopic brain.
We may seek care for COVID-19-affected nerves and the sequelae of mental problems from the perspective of the microscopic, invisible, and energetic brain.
As long as we stay open-minded and inquisitive to the unknown world, we will reach into a deeper understanding of the human brain and life mysteries and be rewarded with more truths about health.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Collective Spark.
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