Your Brain’s Produce Section

Job 38:36
“Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the heart?”

Your grocery store has a produce section. Recent discoveries suggest that your brain has a produce section, too.

We use many different kinds of filing systems to keep track of different kinds of information. Your medical records are stored using a filing system that is quite different from the system used to keep track of your subscription to your favorite magazine. While we can think of many different kinds of filing systems, no one has ever discovered the filing system used by the human brain. We simply don’t understand how it keeps track of things.

Researchers are wondering whether a stroke victim might offer a clue to how the brain arranges information. One man suffered damage to the left frontal lobe of his brain. As is common with this kind of damage, he had difficulty naming things. However, this patient’s difficulty was most unusual. He could identify just about anything. He could look at pictures, memorize lists of words, and do as well as anyone else, except for one class of things. He could not identify the picture of a fruit or vegetable. He couldn’t remember any fruits or vegetables that he memorized out of a word list. One scientist said that it was just as if he had lost the page in his brain that had fruits and vegetables written on it.

We may never be able to understand the human brain fully. But clearly an organ this wondrous and complex had to be designed and created by an even greater mind. That Creator desires a day-by-day relationship with you through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Prayer:
Dear Lord, when I see how wondrous the human brain is, I am humbled and know that I could never completely appreciate You. Do not let this prevent me from having a closer relationship with You through faith in Your sacrifice for me on the cross. Amen.

Notes:
“Food for Thought: Does the Brain Have a Produce Section?” Discover, October 1985, p. 10.