Barefoot and Pregant (and more intelligent?)

Experiencing some stimuli can greatly improve brain performance. The brain updates itself each time a person learns a new ability such as a technique, language element, visual component as well as through external stimuli. It does this with the minimal number of operations necessary by establishing new connections and/or releasing old connections. These connections use the the medium of neural nodes. Because the positions of likely endpoints have already been established in the brain it is unlikely that daily "wear and tare" is going to make a significant change to function or performance.

Consider this. In statistics changes over time are plotted using data points and generally follow a trend which establishes a normal distribution shape when taken over time and when examined against functional processes. Bell curves are based on 100% with Mu established at 50%. If the brain's performance were plotted using this technique and under the right conditions the average brain would probably have a very poor amplitude (ie: pdf distribution). This is because, over time, the average brain would not experience enough extreme changes to allow for extreme outcomes in the plot. In order to change the data in the plot the brain must necessarily endure massive changes for good or for ill of the brain.

Here is a more specific analogy. The IQ scale system today uses this normal distribution model which is an integration of pdf distributions. The 25% below and above Mu (to the left and to the right) are the calibrated scores of 50% of the population. 50% of the population do not have the same intellectual capacity but rather 50% of the population (based on the British standard) fall within a range that are close enough to each other to give a "100 score". It follows then that these "50%" do not then experience enough functional changes in their daily lives to push them below or above this threshold. It could be further surmised that 50% of the population comparatively experiences fewer changes to their brain function because of some external or internal conditions.

Now enters stimuli. It has been garnered from 30 years of research that the brain can endure more connection changes than previously thought without seriously compromising health. The nature of brain connections and preexisting nodes causes most neural changes to occur within very finite areas. These changes are obviously mental and not likely to alter the brain's personality, capacity or cnr (coherent neural representation).

It has been discovered, however, that persistent low-dose stimuli can dramatically escalate rapid connection formation. It is theorized that this is accomplished by varying stimuli and sometimes interchanging external and internal stimuli.

For example, it was found that the nerve endings on the bottoms of the feet collect enormous amounts of response information. This is partly because of distance from the brain. The pedal nerves afford tremendous information when axon's are not dampened by the release of hormones. The feet nerves, when switched on, also allow the brain to function a little differently when it is also processing coherent, cognitive information.

If one were to walk on the beach barefoot while reading a book and persist this habit over consecutive occurrences it follows that brain performance could be improved dramatically.


Biblio

SETI (http://radio.seti.org/episodes/196 March 2009)

Newswise (http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/543111/)