Sam Kean Quotes

It's likely that taboo words are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Massive left hemisphere strokes or the entire surgical removal of the left hemisphere can leave people with no articulate speech other than the ability to swear, spout cliches and song lyrics.

When looking at the brain, it is important to go beyond its structure to its function. This is because often in cognitive disorders, the structure of the brain is intact, but its function is compromised.

I was reading this story about these people who suffered from brain injuries, and then their behavior changed kind of drastically afterward, and I just said to myself, 'There's no way that that can possibly be true.'

Schizophrenia may be a necessary consequence of literacy.

Neurologists have a host of clinical tests that let them observe what a brain-damaged patient can and cannot do.

I damaged all the complicated bits of the brain to do with processing and emotional control. I was prey to every single emotion that swept over me and I couldn't deal with it. I had to re-learn things from scratch.

Where does personality end and brain damage begin?

From my first published paper in 1946, my obsession has been to objectify inner experiences, to demystify the software of human existence. How? By relating changes in external behavior, systematically and lawfully, to changes in the brain.

My wife says I have a frontal lobe issue. Your frontal lobe controls your danger response, like, 'Whoa, I shouldn't be doing this.'

The brain is one of the richest green fields of science. There's so much yet to be discovered.

For me, addiction exposes all of the brain mechanism under the influence of a profoundly distorted primary motivation. It's such a window into how we function as human beings. And the patient doesn't know that's happening! Doesn't believe that's happening! That's the fascinating part.

My breadth of football experience, my injury history, and my all-or-nothing goal to become one of the best linebackers in the NFL, combined with all I'd been learning about the game's neurological effects on the brain, convinced me I'd be wise in choosing another career.

I know if I don't look after myself, I will be talking to you in a couple of years' time mumbling my words and slurring. It won't be because I am drunk: it will be the fighting, taking blow after blow to the brain. That scares me. I don't worry about being killed in the ring; it's losing my mind that I fear.

Neurons are living cells with a metabolism. And they need glucose in order to function. Glucose is the fuel of the brain, just like gasoline is the fuel of your car.

The brain is constantly adapting.

At some point, we're going to have to get to the point where, before you play football, I'm going to test you at some stage in your life to determine if you're susceptible to concussions. We need a test that shows us that your brain is situated a certain way that puts you at risk. If you are susceptible, don't play football.

In the brain, you have connections between the neurons called synapses, and they can change. All your knowledge is stored in those synapses.

In terms of the brain, you can in a crude way think of the human brain as a computer.

I'm a simple country neuroscientist, not an expert on democracy, but I do know something about how the brain works and how opinion-reinforcing bubbles can distort the picture of reality we build from the information we encounter on a daily basis.

I do love the way the brain looks. I love the way it's shaped.

The thought of having sclerosis of the synapses is alarming. I wonder if in later life I will pay the price for having overstimulated my mental apparatus in my twenties.

I've always had this fascination with the brain. I'm not really much of a religious person, but like anybody, you are at least fascinated by what some call a soul - what I would call the brain - and who we are and how we work.

The brain is plastic its whole life span.

The connections in the brain fade away unless used. We know that early stimulation of children leads to higher cognitive scores.

You only have one brain. There's no replacement surgery for that.