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For over 27,000 years

stories has been one of our most fundamental communication methods.

Our brain on stories: How our brains become more active when we tell stories

We all enjoy a good story,

why do we feel so much more engaged when we hear a narrative about events?

we listen to a powerpoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated.

It's in fact quite simple. I

Broca's area and Wernicke's area

language processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning.

things change dramatically.

how delicious certain foods were, our sensory cortex lights up. If it's about motion, our motor cortex gets active:

but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

A story can put your whole brain to work.

can have the same effect on them too.

The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it can synchronize, says Uri Hasson from Princeton:

By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners' brains."

Evolution has wired our brains for storytelling—how to make use of it

hy does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other, have such a profound impact on our learning?

We are wired that way.

While we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, or disgust.

We think in narratives all day long,

We make up (short) stories in our heads for every action and conversation.

In fact, Jeremy Hsu found [that] "personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations."

henever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences.

metaphors work so well with us.

story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect.

John Bargh

We link up metaphors and literal happenings automatically. Everything in our brain is looking for the cause and effect relationship of something we've previously experienced.

ou mention the same story to him, as if it was your idea?

According to Uri Hasson from Princeton, a story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.

tell them a story,

According to Princeton researcher Hasson, storytelling is the only way to plant ideas into other people's minds.

Write more persuasively—bring in stories from yourself or an expert

multitasking is so hard for us.

ask for quotes from the top folks in the industry or simply find great passages they had written online.

The simple story is more successful than the complicated one

easy to convince ourselves that they have to be complex and detailed to be interesting.

the simpler a story, the more likely it will stick.

Using simple language as well as low complexity is the best way to activate the brain regions that make us truly relate to the happenings of a story.

xchanging stories with those of experts.

educe the number of adjectives or complicated nouns in a presentation or article

Our brain learns to ignore certain overused words and phrases that used to make stories awesome.

prefrontal cortex’s ability to boss the brain increases with age.

reward system can outmuscle the master planner.

adolescent brain specifically evolved to respond to rewards so teens would leave behind the protection provided by their parents and start exploring their environment — a necessary step toward the independence they will need in adulthood.

So that’s why you have parents to act as your prefrontal cortex,” Frank jokes. Then, all too often, he says, “you reach adolescence and you don’t listen to your parents anymore.”

brain acts as the sculptor and chops away excess synapses. Scientists refer to this process as synaptic pruning.

If you have ever thought that the choices teenagers make are all about exploring and pushing limits, you are on to something

necessary phase in teen development

exploratory period.

Even laboratory mice experience a similar phase during their development.

Young mice that explore most tend to live longest

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The scanner relies on a powerful magnet and radio waves to create detailed images of the brains

Teens also can play games that require them to make choices,

observing and measuring which parts of the teens’ brains are most active

During the risk-taking and rewards-based tests, one region deep inside the brain shows more activity in adolescents than it does in children or adults, Crone says. This region, known as the ventral striatum, is often referred to as the “reward center”

Adolescents are particularly sensitive and responsive to influence by friends, desires and emotions, researchers say. It’s one of the hallmarks of this stage in life.

eel good” response helps explain why they often give in to impulsive desires.

to be shouting louder” between the ages of 13 and 17 than at any other time during human development.

prefrontal cortex, it’s the brain’s master planner.

brain is locked in a tug-of-war between the logical pull of the prefrontal cortex and the impulsive pull of the ventral striatum.

prefrontal cortex seems to lag in developing. It turns out this delay serves an important evolutionary function,

So it’s important that the master planner not be too rigid or restrictive during adolescence. Instead, it stays open to learning.

One of the processes involves axons, or fibers that connect nerve cells. From infancy, these fibers allow one nerve cell to talk to another. Throughout the teen years, fatty tissue starts to insulate the axons from interfering signals — it is a bit like the plastic that coats electrical cables.

In axons, the insulating tissue allows information to zip back and forth between brain cells much more quickly. It also helps build networks that link the prefrontal cortex with other brain regions, allowing them to work together more efficiently.

The second key process involves synapses. A synapse is like a dock between nerve cells. Nerve cells communicate by transmitting chemical and electrical signals. Those signals move through the synapses.

brain starts discarding many of these connections

So the brain strengthens the synapses it really needs and eliminates those that either slow things down or aren’t useful.

both siblings had brains unlike those of typical people

longer for a "stop" message to get through.

different parts of the brain were less efficient in both,"

took longer than a typical person to respond to a signal telling them to stop performing a task.

less self-control.

siblings without drug problems also had impaired self-control offers strong evidence that these brain abnormalities are inherited,

Self-control and the ability to regulate your emotions

allows us to succeed,

help researchers figure out how to help susceptible people strengthen their self-control,

The challenge for parents, educators, clinicians and others who deal with teenagers is to determine whether their exasperating behavior is just the stuff of growing up or whether their moodiness and lack of judgment are indicative of a larger, perhaps pathological, problem. Many mental disorders begin to manifest during adolescence, including schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse. “The key,” says Jensen, “is to be aware of what’s going on with your kids. Teens today are exposed to more stress than ever before, including drugs, alcohol, and violence. We all have to be mindful.”

we as marketers need to understand how we can adapt it to social media and digital technology.

The brain is so fascinating. It has been the focus of science and mystery alike trying to understand how it works including why it seems so wired for storytelling.

One thing we know is that large amounts of data or information with no context cannot be easily remembered;

The human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information for less than 30 seconds, which means, your brain can only handle a 7-digit phone number

omething interesting and relevant needs to happen in a lecture or presentation every 10 minutes so that the audience pays attention and remembers what you say

Hearing information told in the narrative from another person helps to reach the old brain, triggering emotion as we imagine ourselves in the story reacting and feeling.

Repeat to remember

ure data with no context is extremely difficult for the brain to put into long term memory –

thinking about fantasy first prepares us for situations that may come up in real life, narrative provides context.

The ‘old brain’ in humans is driven by basic primitive instincts such as hunger, sex and fight-or-flight are also intrinsically tied to emotion. 

The old brain does not understand numbers or abstract terms, like “integrated approach” or “comprehensive solution” which are an evolutionary part of our new brain

he old brain is influenced by beginnings and endings like in a simple story structure with patterns we can recogniz

It is important to not only recognize the history behind storytelling but explore why it is so prevalent across centuries, cultures and mediums

hearing a story in narrative about a specific situation actually helps us prepare for when this situation potentially happens to us.

share information with each other and will continue no matter what the medium.

We want stories to be memorable so they can easily be shared with others creating word of mouth.

y rare, a 2009 study by Belgian researchers found that 41 percent of hospital and rehab patients with a vegetative state diagnosis were actually minimally conscious

n a few cases, this technology has enabled rudimentary communication with patients trapped inside an unresponsive body. In the future, some scientists believe, it may be possible to directly decode these patients’ thoughts.

technology that created these disorders in the first place.

ut a badly damaged brain is not necessarily unconscious. The recent research tells us quite clearly that human consciousness is not binary. It can exist in degrees, fade in and out, even when the body is unresponsive.

wen also described a new way to assess mental function in unresponsive patients. It involves scanning someone’s brain as they watch an 8 minute clip of an Alfred Hitchcock film. When healthy people do this, various parts of the brain synchronize their activity at certain times in the clip. Owen argues that if brain injury patients exhibit similar patterns, it could be a telltale sign of residual cognitive function.

imple yes-no communication probably isn’t enough to allow patients to participate in decisions about their care.

Gallant’s lab has shown that it’s possible to reconstruct still images and video clips from the patterns of activity elicited in the brain of the person viewing them. If Gallant can see what your visual cortex is doing, he can tell you, more or less, what you’re looking at.

significance of these findings cannot be underestimated

the biological basis of psychopathy remains poorly understood

To date, nobody has investigated the 'connectivity' between the specific brain regions implicated in psychopathy.

Earlier studies had suggested that dysfunction of specific brain regions might underpin psychopathy

amygdale

the degree of abnormality was significantly related to the degree of psychopathy. These results suggest that psychopaths have biological differences in the brain which may help to explain their offending behaviours.

They also underwent brain MRI scans. Participants who reported higher cognitive activity levels were found to have higher diffusion anisotropy values in the brain.

but this new research also suggests that such things can also help preserve the brain's structural integrity.

long-term improvements in mental function and is the single best thing one can do to slow the cognitive decline that accompanies normal aging.

a short-lasting, deeply euphoric state that's well beyond the simple relaxation or peacefulness felt by many following intense exercise.

that are synthesized within the brain and therefore could cause euphoria without crossing the blood-brain barrier.

there are different types of endorphins

The researchers found that this long run was associated with increased opioid release in the runner's' brains, particularly in the prefrontal cortex

and the anterior cingulate cortex and insula

It's likely that runner's high is not entirely mediated by the opioid system: Exercise also increases the levels of endocannabinoids, the brain's natural cannabis-like molecules, in the bloodstream.

Thus exercise-induced increases in endocannabinoid levels in blood are presumably mirrored in the brain and could also contribute to the euphoria of runner's high.

The power of music to affect memory is quite intriguing. Mozart's music and baroque music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activate the left and right brain. The simultaneous left and right brain action maximizes learning and retention of information. The information being studied activates the left brain while the music activates the right brain. Also, activities which engage both sides of the brain at the same time, such as playing an instrument or singing, causes the brain to be more capable of processing information.

strengthen or weaken emotions

releases neurons in the brain which help the body to relax.

certain types of music such as Mozart's Sonata for Two Piano's in D Major before taking a test

average of 119

f 111,

average of 110

Healthy and Not So Healthy Effects

studying the effects of the beat of the music. It was found that slow music could slow the heartbeat and the breathing rate as well as bring down blood pressure. Faster music was found to speed up these same body measurements.

One cannot deny the power of music.

study music have higher grade point averages that those who don't

e park, the walkers were mentally quieter.

nvoluntary attention

atural environments still engage” the brain, she said, but the attention demanded “is effortless.

taking a break from wor

oing for a walk in a green space or just sitting, or even viewing green spaces from your office window.”

He seems calm, even normal

his IQ is over 140

The subjects rate whether the picture is a moral violation on a scale of 1 to 5. Kiehl says most psychopaths do not differ from normal subjects in the way they rate the photos: Both psychopaths and the average person rank the KKK with a burning cross as a moral violation. But there's a key difference: Psychopaths' brains behave differently from that of a nonpsychopathic person. When a normal person sees a morally objectionable photo, his limbic system lights up. This is what Kiehl calls the "emotional circuit," involving the orbital cortex above the eyes and the amygdala deep in the brain. But Kiehl says when psychopaths like Dugan see the KKK picture, their emotional circuit does not engage in the same way.

He notes that alcoholics have brain abnormalities. Do we give them a pass if they kill someone while driving drunk?

Neuroscience and neuroimaging is going to change the whole philosophy about how we punish and how we decide who to incapacitate and how we decide how to deal with people

Just like DNA, he believes brain scans will eventually be standard fare. And that, he and others say, could upend our notions of culpability, crime and punishment.

Several experimental studies show that school kids pay more attention to academics after they’ve had recess

Note that physical education classes are not effective substitutes for free playtime

To reap all the benefits of play, a play break must be truly playful.

when kids pretend together—“results in improved performances in both cognitive-linguistic and social affective domains.”

Some research suggests that the way kids play contributes to their ability to solve divergent problems.

The results? Kids given divergent play materials performed better on divergent problems. They also showed more creativity in their attempts to solve the problems (Pepler and Ross 1981).

Researchers found that the complexity of block play predicted kids’ mathematics achievements in high school.

The association between block play and math performance remained even after researchers controlled for a child’s IQ. It therefore seems plausible that block play itself influenced the cognitive development of these kids.