Why the way you think changes as your brain grows

WORDS AILSA HARVEY

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The brain is the most complex organ in the human body, so it makes sense that it doesn’t develop overnight. In fact, to reach its full functionality, it takes most of the first three decades of your life. You use your brain to conjure up every conscious and unconscious thought, automatically control physiological actions like breathing, experience emotions and comprehend sensations. Naturally, everything in the body requires the brain – it produces your personality and is the central computer of your being. The organ itself comprises 60 per cent fat and 40 per cent water, proteins, carbohydrates and salts. The contents are split into white matter and grey matter. White matter is the deeper portion of the brain, containing nerve fibres covered in a protective membrane coating called myelin. Meanwhile, the grey matter is where information is processed, as this contains the central parts of brain cells, called neurons.

Most everyday actions feel automatic to most people. If you need to collect something from the other side of the room, you might walk over and pick it up with minimal effort. However, life doesn’t begin like this. Although the brain is formed before birth, ready to navigate life in the world, it lacks the capacity to engage in many simple physical and mental processes. Over the years, pathways in the brain that carry electrical signals become strengthened. Motor pathways, which exist at the front of the brain in a region called the motor cortex, need to be engaged in order to plan, execute and control voluntary physical movements. When a baby attempts to walk, it perfects the action through trial and error.

The brain uses sensory input to navigate, balance, reposition foot positions and change posture. Different regions of the brain are responsible for different movements, so as neuron pathways are built and strengthened in the brain, the movements available to a person increase. Environmental factors also influence this. Supportive parents and caregivers who encourage their babies to practise moving and walking, or provide words of praise when they take a step, speed up the development of motor skills. Every time an action is practised, more pathways are created in the brain, and the stronger they become.

Your ability to strengthen the brain doesn’t stop when you’ve learned the basics. Every time you train your brain – whether that’s taking up a new skill or testing its ability to perform existing skills – the brain’s reactive ability and the strength of connections are built. Playing a musical instrument increases grey matter in areas of the brain responsible for motor skills and hearing, for example. Your brain is extremely malleable, continuously shaping itself with new skills, or removing traumatic or useless information. How we treat our brain impacts how its power develops as we interact with the world.