Summary Of Can You Build A Better Brain By Sharon Begley

In the article, “Can You Build a Better Brain,” the author, Sharon Begley, introduces some scientific research about enhancing brain’s performance and discusses how we can improve our brain through training. The author begins the article by emphasizing that brain is more complicated than muscle and scientists still do not completely understand the mechanisms of cognition; furthermore, many studies about brain enhancement do not actually show the mechanisms of brain and how doing a certain activity can help improving it. The author continues the article by talking about the studies claiming that certain vitamins and food can improve cognitive function; however, Begley points out that these studies still contain many problems that weren’t mentioned
in news and scientific reports. Next, she introduces an experiment that was performed on monkeys. By letting monkeys do a certain task repeatedly, the scientists found out that the monkeys use the same brain region as human to perform such task; although that region develops as the monkeys keep doing the task, the development can’t be seen in the other regions of the brain. After that, Begley talks about the positive impact of physical exercise on brain development. Finally, she talks about the potential benefits of playing video games; that is, playing video games enhance memory and cognitive flexibility. The author concludes the article by stating that there are a few games and training programs, which have been tested thoroughly, can help to develop brain’s performance.