Thursday, March 27, 2008

More on the Horse Brain

Thanks for your comment JC, and thank your daughter. It made me continue in my search for where I might have ever heard or read a horse had two brains or the brain could physically grow larger.

Yesterday while I was writing I had books all over the place trying to find an answer. But, I wasn't able to find anything in the books I have here. I don't want to be giving out wrong information, that's why I made sure to say I didn't know if it were true. So, now we know.

I did do some more reading today on the subject. Found a very interesting article by Tamar Simon regarding research done by Dr. Evelyn Hanggi:

http://exn.ca/Templates/Story.asp?ID=1999090953

Quoted from the article, "For instance, Hanggi wanted to explode the myth that horses can't transfer information from one side of the brain to the other because the two sides aren't connected. The theory didn't make sense to Hanggi because anatomy shows that the two sides of the horse's brain are connected."

So, sounds like this may have been a myth from yesteryear. I'm from yesteryear, so maybe that is where the idea of a horse having two brains came from.

I also found an article which might explain my thinking that as one side of the brain is used compared to the other, the more used side gets larger:

http://iceryder.net/brainworks.html

To summarize (this has to do with humans as well as to horses): The more a person uses their brain, the more neurons and dendrites grow. This is especially important in the first three years of life (human). The more the neural circuits are activitated the stronger they get. "If a horse has some problematic behaviors, the brain itself can be changed with timely and appropriate re-training." "If a positive training paradigm is offered to the horse, new pathways will be established and the older ones will shrink." There was not an author's name given for this article, but it was in the "Icelandic Horse Connection" website under "Good Horsemanship", "How the Horse's Brain Works."

Okay, I am happy now. I have answers to where my thinking may have come from, and the real answers.

Thank you.

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