The Perpetual Development of the Brain

The External Factors and Impacts on the Brain

Published in

Medicine Encompassed

3 min readOct 30, 2020

Your genetic make up of course plays a huge role in how your brain develops and functions however genes aren’t the only contributing factor. Maybe the lunch you had yesterday will have a long term impact on your brain, who knows? We humans have approximately 86 billion neurons in our brain after all. It is nearly impossible to understand all of it, but what scientists do know is that there are a variety of external factors that impact the development of your brain.

Plasticity — The Influence of Environment

Researchers use the term plasticity to describe the brain’s ability to change in response to repeated stimulation or change in environment.

The developing brain’s ongoing adaptations are the result of both genetics and experience. Our brains prepare us to expect certain experiences by forming the pathways needed to respond to those experiences. For example, our brains are “wired” to respond to the sound of speech; when babies hear people speaking, the neural systems in their brains responsible for speech and language receive the necessary stimulation to organize and function (Perry, 2006).

So, does the lunch you ate yesterday affect your brain?

The bottom line is, yes your diet impacts your brain’s cognition drastically. Inflammatory diet patterns that are high in sugar, refined carbs, unhealthy fats and processed foods can contribute to impaired memory and learning, as well as increase your risk of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

However they may seem irrelevant as they are very long-term affects. What about coffee? Let’s say you drank a nice glass of iced coffee with your lunch. Caffeine plays the role of a central nervous system stimulant. When it reaches your brain, the most noticeable effect is alertness. This leads to headaches, drowsiness and late response time mentally and physically.

TL;DR: Maintaining a healthy diet is great for your brain and the opposite is also true.

Nightmare-ish Affect on the Brain

“That test was a nightmare!”

Despite overusing the term nightmare in our everyday lives, nightmares can have a serious impact on your brain, especially children ages 3 to 6. In fact, for 3 to 7 percent of the U.S. population, nightmares can be a real problem.

Nightmares are even more prevalent now due to the pandemic.

Dreams are part of the brain’s default network. They are a system of interconnected regions including the thalamus, medial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex which remains active during quieter periods.

Nightmares ruin the amount of REM sleep you get and this ultimately leads to delayed response and extreme fatigue as it piles up. Eventually, the brain will not be able to handle the lack of rest and begin to shut down.

So, get that sleep in and think positive!

Toxic relationships you ended years ago may still be affecting your brain.

Have you ever ended a toxic relationship? Good on you, but it still might be impacting your brain. When couples break up, their brains lose their regular supply of these neurotransmitters, and they go into neurological withdrawal.

This is how broken hearts break brains. Subjectively, the deficit in these chemicals can make us feel anxious, depressed, and isolated. These feelings may carry on after the relationship is over and develop into mental health concerns.

Are any of these factors familiar?

Almost everything you do in your daily life has some sort of long term or even short term impact on your brain. But I’m not telling you to be hypersensitive of everything you do, just treat your body better and be aware that genetics aren’t the only factors contributing to your brain’s development.