20220607 : slow motion...

When the nurses give me my glasses, it takes about 2 seconds to reach for it, 2-3 seconds to position the fingers correctly on the frame, and another 3-4 seconds to place it on my face properly and adjusted.

Now, that is not the speed at which the brain is thinking of the action. It moves like anyone else. The body doesn't.

That is just an example. Almost every action is in slow motion - left hand of course, right still is asleep.

I would like to attribute it to the limb and muscle, but I know it is not. The left hand started to move almost 3 years back and for the last year or so, it has been exercised everyday and gets enough movement to be ok I guess.

But it isn't. Everything happens in slow motion compared to the corresponding thought that drives it.

I have wondered often why that is so. I have a theory (not medically backed up of course)

Our big bulk of head - the brain - controls everything about the body. Just absolutely everything... 

The big hulk of the body - as wonderful it performs, is connected to the brain by a very narrow spine.

Around the brain stem, the complete brain starts narrowing down and converges to the spine.

Although the brain can crunch a lot, everything has to pass through the narrowing stem and the slender spine .

As we grow, I am assuming the thickness of the stem and spine is optimised to manage all the information in the absolutely necessary thickness and stays at this. This is very optimised.

If we take a cross section of the stem or the spine, that is the area needed for optimal performance. A bit like a thick single strand wire. There is a limit to how much electricity we can pass with the area of cross section.

With a stroke at the stem or close to the spine, parts of it gets destroyed. The cross section gets reduced depending on the effect of the stroke. So, there is a limit to how much information can pass through it.

Basically, it becomes a classic "bottleneck"!

Now, if I simply can't do something, I can assume that there is no space for that signal to pass through.

However when things happen, but in slow motion, I am left wondering...

I feel signals come and as they near the bottleneck, they get prioritised. Almost >95% of the brain signals I think are autonomous and we have no say in it. About <5% are concious/ voluntary activities.

I think the brain priorities the auto functions against the voluntarily ones. Kind of two traffic police personnel managing a section of a road allowing few to pass each time, each way...

So, even if the brain thinks and sends the stimulus, it has to wait its turn to get executed. 

(Time division multiplexing for the electrically inclined folks)🙂