Neurobiology Quotes

“Honeybees possess amazing numerical skills that rival those of many vertebrates. Honeybees have a reputation of being insect geniuses: not only can they enumerate and order numbers, but they also possess elaborate working memory to ponder about upcoming decisions, understand abstract concepts such as 'sameness' and 'difference', and learn intricate skills from other bees. And they achieve all of this with fewer than one million neurons.”
― Andreas Nieder, A Brain for Numbers: The Biology of the Number Instinct

“Myth 1: Infants don’t remember anything, so experience in infancy doesn’t really matter.
Reality: The infant brain has a huge capacity for memory. Memories from infancy are stored in the brain as implicit memory, which makes up the emotional brain, the unconscious mind, and the foundation for lifelong mental and physical health.
Myth 2: Responding to cries spoils an infant or teaches an infant to be dependent.
Reality: Responding reliably strengthens a baby’s emotional brain circuits, helps them grow confidently independent, and gives them the gift of stress regulation for life.
Myth 3: Babies can and need to learn to self-soothe, which means go from a state of high stress to a state of safety on their own.
Reality: Babies cannot self-soothe because they do not have the brain parts to do so until way beyond infancy.
Myth 4: Babies are resilient, so experience in infancy doesn’t matter.
Reality: Experience in infancy matters. It interacts with genes to influence mental health.
Myth 5: We can’t make a difference to our baby’s mental health outcomes if our baby inherits mental health genetics and intergenerational trauma through epigenetics.
Reality: Nurture makes an impact on inherited DNA and epigenetics to reduce or silence mental health effects.
Myth 6: Everyone falls in love with and knows what to do with their baby right away.
Reality: Lots of time touching, smelling, and looking into your baby’s eyes slowly builds your love, knowledge, and relationship with your baby.
Myth 7: Having a baby impairs your brain function.
Reality: Having a baby changes your brain to give you nurturing superpowers.
Myth 8: Being with my baby is doing nothing.
Reality: Being with my baby is vital brain-building, circuit-sculpting, cycle-starting activism for my baby’s future.
Myth 9: Only pay attention to your baby’s stress and emotions when there’s a reason for them.
Reality: All of your baby’s stress and emotions need to feel welcome and safe.
Myth 10: Since my baby will be with a grandparent, a nanny, or at daycare, I should reduce my care at home to prepare them.
Reality: Providing my baby with as much nurture as possible when we are together is what they need to build their brain.
Myth 11: You need to buy things for your baby’s brain development.
Reality: Your presence is the key to your baby’s brain development.
Myth 12: I need swings, seats, and containers to take care of my baby. My baby needs lots of classes and socialization to thrive.
Reality: The sensory experiences from my body are the only thing my baby needs.
Myth 13: I should feed my baby on a schedule.
Reality: Feed your baby when their body is experiencing physiological signals of hunger and showing hunger cues.
Myth 14: Breastfeeding or body feeding past six or twelve or twenty-four or thirty-six months is extra, spoiling, or for no reason.
Reality: Breastfeeding or body feeding at six or twelve or twenty-four or thirty-six months is brain-building and nurturing.
Myth 15: Holding a baby is doing nothing.
Reality: Holding a baby is seriously hard and brain-building work.
Myth 16: Newborn babies are happy with a swaddle, hat, pacifier, and bassinet.
Reality: Newborns are happy on someone’s skin, chest-to-chest, covered by a blanket—no swaddle, hat, pacifier, or bassinet needed.
Myth 17: Babies’ stress and emotions don’t matter and can be ignored.
Reality: Babies feel transformational stress and a huge range of emotions that influence how their brains and bodies develop.
Myth 18: If we respond to our crying, clinging babies, we teach them that that behavior is good, so they learn to cry and cling more.
Reality: When we respond to crying and clinging, babies cry less, and we build the infant brain to be more independent later.
Myth 19: There’s no difference if I hold my crying baby; they’re crying anyway.
Reality: Holding my crying baby provides a nurture bath to their brain regardless of how long they cry...”
― Greer Kirshenbaum, PhD

“Neurons are the prophets of reality, consciousness is the scripture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Cell biology is soul biology.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“We stretch time when we suffer,
we compress time when we're joyful,
we expand space in empathy,
we collapse distance through memory.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Fear is an archetypical instinct of survival.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“Half knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. Take the notion that jellyfish don't have a brain, for example. When we talk about the brain, we're actually referring to the central nervous system. In case of the jellyfish, the nervous system is not centralized, instead it's spread across the anatomy. So the actual fact is, jellyfish do have a brain, it just doesn't look like one. Even trees have a brain, a nervous system that is. To put it simply, consciousness is the supreme fundamental of life, and it is impossible to have consciousness without having some sort of nervous system, for consciousness is the creation of the nervous system.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament

“Brain makes the mind, mind makes the person.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament

“Neurons are the building blocks of mind.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sin Dios Sí Hay Divinidad: The Pastor Who Never Was

“There is nothing free about your will, all of it is conditioned to the hilt.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence

“Neurons can make or break the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Revolution Indomable

“Life without numbers is inconceivable for us. How else would we count objects, tell time, calculate prices, and so on? Our scientifically and technically advanced culture simply would not exist without numbers.”
― Andreas Nieder, A Brain for Numbers: The Biology of the Number Instinct

“One of the key findings over the past decades is that our number faculty is deeply rooted in our biological ancestry, and not based on our ability to use language.”
― Andreas Nieder, A Brain for Numbers: The Biology of the Number Instinct

“All the world's an asylum,
All the people are lunatics.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“This is the essence of mindsight: We must look inward to know our own internal world before we can map clearly the internal state, the mind, of the other. As we grow in our ability to know ourselves we become receptive to knowing each other. And as a "we" is woven into the neurons of our mirroring brains, even our sense of self is illuminated by the light or our connection. With internal awareness and empathy, self-empowerment and joining, differentiation and linkage, we create harmony within the resonating circuits of our social brains.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

“Prior learning sends related information down from the top layers of our six-neuron-deep column to shape our perception of what we are seeing or hearing or touching or smelling or tasting. There is no "immaculate perception"; perception is virtually always a blend of what we are sensing now and what we've learned previously.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

“Artificial Intelligence is there to act as a supplement to human life - to extend our capacities, not substitute life.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“It is only water as long as its internal realm of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, remains intact. If you break that structure which we call H20, it ceases to be water. Likewise, a soul remains a soul, as long as its neural structures remain intact. If you mess with those structures, then the entire personality of the soul may get radically altered. So, to think even further, if those neural structures inside your head stop working, then the soul ceases to exist forever.”
― Abhijit Naskar, When Humans Unite: Making A World Without Borders

“Neurosonnet 2001

Neurons giveth,
neurons taketh away.
By neurons we forge self,
with neurons we fade away.

Within neurons cosmos comes to life,
within neurons worlds come to end.
Neurons are building blocks of walls,
as well as the instrument of bridges.

There is not one but two cosmos,
one made by nature, another by neurons.
We are the makers of observable reality,
shaped by hopes and biases of our own.

Neurons are the birthplace of God,
Neurons produce all ghosts and goblins.
Life is a concoction of neurochemistry,
Boon and bane are both our own making.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Neurons giveth,
neurons taketh away.
By neurons we forge self,
with neurons we fade away.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Soul is just electrochemical response of uniquely individual makeup of organic matter, once that individual makeup breaks down, the individual soul simply vanishes.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Neuroscience is Poetry (Sonnet 2717)

Human brain is the most astonishing
transdimensional engineering of Mother Nature,
from outside it's just a 3 pound lump of goop,
but inside, the very fabric of spacetime
bursts into existence -

we stretch time when we suffer,
we compress time when we're joyful,
we expand space in empathy,
we collapse distance through memory -

we invent gods when we feel helpless,
we invent weapons when we're scared,
we invent poetry when we're inspired,
we invent politics when we want control -

in short, the human brain is bigger
on the inside than the outside.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Human brain is the most astonishing transdimensional engineering of Mother Nature, from outside it's just a 3 pound lump of goop, but inside, the very fabric of spacetime bursts into existence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“The human brain is bigger on the inside than the outside.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Serotonin, a chemical found in plants as well as in ancient invertebrate nervous systems, is widespread in the bodies and brains of mammals, including humans. It acts in diverse ways: it controls the diameter of blood vessels, affects pain perception, influences the gut, plays a role in the body’s inflammatory responses, and causes platelets to clump. More significant from a psychiatric and psychological perspective, however, serotonin is deeply implicated in the roots of depression, sleep regulation, aggression, and suicide.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

“Diary of an Alien Dervish
(Astrobiology Sonnet 2978)

I've descended from exploding stars,
and you think you with your
monkey mind can erase me,

you can own all the rockets, all the satellites,
all the armies, robots, and all the banks,
still you cannot dampen my nerve fibers
charged with lightning from the heavens -

you can keep your stoneage starcharts,
there is starlight bursting in my arteries,
there is comet-dust in my veins
that I haven't even used yet -

I'm a record of the universe,
I won't fit into your primate clock -
even a single eyelash of mine
is too big for your hemispheres,
I won't fit into your binary compass -

my heart contains rivers from across galaxies,
my lungs hold breath from the last universe -
I spin like a mad dervish, and particles
conspire to construct the cosmos in my wake.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“I'm a record of the universe, I won't fit into your primate clock.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“My heart contains rivers from across galaxies, my lungs hold breath from the last universe - I spin like a mad dervish, and particles conspire to construct the cosmos in my wake.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“I've descended from exploding stars,
and you think you with your
monkey mind can erase me,

you can own all the rockets, all the satellites,
all the armies, robots, and all the banks,
still you cannot dampen my nerve fibers
charged with lightning from the heavens -

there is starlight bursting in my arteries,
there is comet-dust in my veins -
I spin like a mad dervish, and particles
conspire to construct the cosmos in my wake.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“I've descended from exploding stars, there is starlight bursting in my arteries, comet-dust in my veins - I spin like a mad dervish, and particles conspire to construct the cosmos in my wake.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth