ABSTRACT
Man's great biological specialty is his ability to learn; he does this better than any other animal. The exterior of the brain is pinkish gray, but the interior is white. The whiteness comes from a material called myelin, which surrounds each of the brain's many millions of nerve fibers, telephone, or television set. The human brain is often compared to a computer. The great neurologist Sir Charles Sherrington once described the brain as "an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern but never an abiding one." As the spinal cord enters the brain, it angles forward and elaborates into a structure called the brainstem. In young children, however, damage to the left hemisphere is less likely to retard language development, or affects it less permanently, than is true of a similarly damaged adult brain.
