Why Head Injury is so Dangerous
Where your forehead is, just above the nose, is an area called the Brodmann area 10. I don’t make up these names. It contains approximately 250 million neurons in each hemisphere, and has extensive dendritic spines connecting to vast numbers of other neurons, thus integrating brain function between visual, auditory, and somatic sensory systems. What you see, hear, and feel is partially integrated at the front of your brain. It serves as the highest cortical area responsible for motor planning, organization, regulation and plays a role in integration of sensory information. It also regulates intellectual function and action, and is involved in working memory. Associated functions of Brodmann area 10 include spatial memory, memory retrieval, non-speech processing of sound, decision making involving conflict and reward, and smelling familiar odors. It’s a lot of power.
Damage to Brodmann area 10 leads to problems with affect, social judgement, executive memory, abstract thinking and intentionality. It’s a huge loss of power.
Brodmann area 10, an advanced part of the brain, is where you learn to take the initiative to get things done. You plan ahead, daydream, set goals, and form silent thought. You integrate information in higher level cognition and strategic processes in memory.
Your forehead is frontline to your body, and most at risk for injury. Football, wrestling, and boxing can be deadly sports. We watch TV; we know. You may not play football, or wrestle and box with your children in any pro-league way; however, through sheer exuberance, you or someone you love might bang your head on something or the edge of something, or run into someone’s elbow by mistake. Falling off a bike, car accidents, or walking into a door from inattention can have serious repercussions. Head injury is dangerous, brutal, and sometimes deadly. A frontal skull impact can be particularly gruesome because it affects so much of how we function. The latest news on football should be enough to discourage going without a helmut, if you insist upon playing. Boxer Mohammed Ali suffered repeated blows to the head, ending his career and diminishing his life.
Should you be worried if you bang your head? Damn right. What to do? Get it checked out. It may be nothing, but brain injury can show up past the time we remember the incident. A brain would be a terrible thing to lose. Being hard headed, so to speak, does not protect you from your brain smacking into the inside of your skull and causing problems. Brains can be injured, the same as other tissue. You can have a boo-boo on your brain as easily as you can have a boo-boo on your knee.
Pay attention to what happens to your body. That’s Aging Intelligently.