Brain Play
After reading the books from the beginning of this class some very heavy theoretical others practical and most of them classics in their own rite it was really refreshing to read a play Full in four acts 14 scenes, with intermission, encore and various actors coming in and out of the stage with the director worthy of both a tony and an Oscar. David Brooks [1] is brilliant in terms of assimilating, in every scene, a wide variety of research on different parts of the brain from individuals who have been studying various parts of the brain.
While conveying deep scientific principles of how or brain works, he has also made it practical with real life examples. Employees and managers can benefit by having a better understanding of how their brain works and be able to focus and work smarter. James Gross [2] was asked what he thought about reappraisal and its role in education wider society. His response was “this knowledge should be taught early and often. It should be in the water we drink Cortana”.
The SCARF (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness) model provides a neuroscience-informed view for understanding workplace behavior and motivation. He emphasized this in his Ted Talk [3]. The brain is incredibly social and the advantage of the SCRAF is that multiple parameters of its elements can be increased simultaneously.
If normal people have to go through so many challenges and have to adopt many different have strategies to improve their work life my thought drifted over to my friend who suffers from mild cognitive impairment (MCI). He was also diagnosed as having adult ADHD. I had described in detail in my blog post on David Kinaman book ‘Thinking hard and slow’ of how they are mostly in the system 1 thinking. This book provides the neurobiological reason what complex system level thing is difficult for them along with not able to multitask. In his case MRI scans showed the two dark spots and was confirmed by a PET scan in the prefrontal cortex area. My friend had been asking his neurologist, clinical psychologists and occupational therapists as to the reasons why people with MCI cannot do complex tasks or they tend to forget things. None had the answer till I shared the book by David Rock [1] and cover in his book. Complex tasks need more metabolic resources which for them is in hsort supply. Even tasks that are embedded in the basal ganglia such as driving becomes as challenge. Their reaction time to events become slow and tend to get into accidents more often. While each area of the brain do different functions and are documented in the picture of brain through the book. I felt it would be nice to see different areas of the brain and their job functions all together. Chat GPT [4] in its newest version has the capability to draw diagrams. I gave it the prompt to put together the various regions of the brain and their functions in one picture. Following is the result.
Not a bad rendering at very high level. However, the function of the limbic area is not described. Try as hard as I did with many different prompts it still always gave the same picture. The libic area regulates the emotions and helps with the memory formation linked to the hippocampus. The book does a very good job in helping people improve their productivity, focus and working smarter. I wish it also covered in detail the challenges and suggest some solutions for the neurodiverse (MCI, ADHD, Autism) community. Neurodiverse peoples brains and in general more act
[1] Rock, David. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. New York: Harper Business, 2009.
[2] Ibid, 132
[3] Rock, David. Ted Talk: Learning about the brain changes everything: David Rock at TEDxTokyo
[4] ChatGPT rendering the diagram of the brain.
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