[NetBehaviour] Your Brain Boots Up Like a Computer.

[marc]

Your Brain Boots Up Like a Computer.

By Abigail W. Leonard
Special to LiveScience.

As we yawn and open our eyes in the morning, the brain stem sends little 
puffs of nitric oxide to another part of the brain, the thalamus, which 
then directs it elsewhere.

Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more 
complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that 
set the stage for more complex brain operations, according to a new study.

In these first moments of the day, sensory information floods the 
system—the bright sunlight coming through the curtains, the time on the 
screeching alarm clock—and all of it needs to be processed and 
organized, so the brain can understand its surroundings and begin to 
perform more complex tasks.

"The thinking part of the brain is applying a sort of stencil to the 
information coming in and what the nitric oxide is doing is allowing 
more refinement of that stencil," says Dwayne Godwin, an associate 
professor at Wake Forest University and lead author of the study, which 
was funded by the National Eye Institute.

The little two-atom molecule, it seems, is partly responsible for our 
ability to perceive whatever it is we're sensing.

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060817_brain_boot.html