The Science of Thinking Smarter

Harvard Business Review Article
The Science of Thinking Smarter: A Conversation with Brain Expert John J. Medina
by John J. Medina, Diane Coutu 6 pages. Publication date: May 01, 2008. Prod. #: R0805B-PDF-ENG

Advances in neurobiology have demonstrated that the brain is so sensitive to external experiences that it can be rewired through exposure to cultural influences. Experiments have shown that in some people, parts of the brain light up only when they are presented with an image of Bill Clinton. In others, it's Jennifer Aniston. Or Halle Berry. What other stimuli could rewire the brain? Is there a Boeing brain? A Goldman Sachs brain? No one really knows yet, says Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, who has spent much of his career exploring the mysteries of neuroscience with laypeople. As tempting as it is to try to translate the growing advances to the workplace, he warns, it's just too early to tell how the revolution in neurobiology is going to affect the way executives run their organizations. "If we understood how the brain knew how to pick up a glass of water and drink it, that would represent a major achievement," he says. Still, neuroscientists are learning much that can be put to practical use. For instance, exercise is good for the brain, and long-term stress is harmful, inevitably hurting productivity in the workplace. Stressed people don't do math very well, they don't process language very efficiently, and their ability to remember - in both the short and long terms - declines. In fact, the brain wasn't built to remember with anything like analytic precision and shouldn't be counted on to do so. True memory is a very rare thing on this planet, Medina says. That's because the brain isn't really interested in reality; it's interested in survival. What's more, and contrary to what many twentieth-century educators believed, the brain can keep learning at any age. "We are lifelong learners," Medina says. "That's very good news indeed."