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How your brain and body work, from why you sleep to how a vaccine teaches the immune system, drawn from established science and its sources. The notes explain how things work; for your own health, ask a doctor.
16 notes from Graphite. Free to read, with no account. Nothing here is for sale.
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The note that answers the topic’s biggest question, then the two it leads to most directly.
Start here
The brain works by about 86 billion neurons passing electrical and chemical signals across trillions of connections, with regions that specialize but always work together.
Graphite7 min read
Then
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a 1943 theory that people are driven by five kinds of need, from food and safety up to self-actualization. Maslow never drew the famous pyramid.
Graphite6 min read
And then
Impostor syndrome, also spelled imposter syndrome, is the persistent feeling of being a fraud despite real achievements. It is common, not a medical diagnosis, and was named in 1978.
Graphite6 min read
Every note
The three above, then the rest. Each answers one question and links to the notes it leads to.
The Stanford prison experiment was a 1971 study in which students played guards and prisoners in a mock jail. It was stopped after six days, and later evidence undercuts its famous lesson.
Graphite7 min read
Synesthesia is a trait in which one sense or idea automatically triggers another, such as letters that come with colors or sounds that have shapes. At least 4% of people have it.
Graphite7 min read
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior: how people think, feel, learn and act. Its main branches, its methods, and how psychologists differ from psychiatrists.
Graphite6 min read
The MBTI is a questionnaire that sorts people into 16 types from four letter pairs. What the letters mean, where it came from, and why psychologists prefer the Big Five.
Graphite7 min read
Brain rot is slang for trivial online content and the foggy, scattered feeling of consuming too much of it. Where the word came from, and what research on scrolling shows.
Graphite7 min read
Love is a set of linked states, from desire to attraction to lasting attachment, each with its own brain systems. What philosophers named and what brain scans show.
Graphite7 min read
Caffeine keeps you awake by blocking adenosine, the chemical that builds up in the brain to make you sleepy. Why it wears off slowly, why tolerance builds, and why late coffee costs sleep.
Graphite6 min read
Gaslighting is manipulation that makes someone doubt their own memory, perception or sanity. Where the word comes from, how it works, and how to tell it from an ordinary disagreement.
Graphite7 min read
An IQ score measures how well you do on reasoning, memory and speed tasks compared with people your age, scaled so 100 is average. What it predicts, what it misses, and why scores rose.
Graphite7 min read
Dopamine is a brain messenger for motivation, learning and movement, more about wanting and predicting rewards than about pleasure. What it does, and what "dopamine detox" gets wrong.
Graphite6 min read
We sleep because the brain and body need it to store memories, restore themselves and stay healthy, though no single reason explains it all. The stages of sleep, what times it, and what it does.
Graphite7 min read
Nobody knows for certain why we dream. Dreams come mostly in REM sleep, and the leading theories link them to memory, emotion and rehearsing threats. What's known, and what isn't.
Graphite7 min read
Vaccines work by showing the immune system a harmless version or piece of a germ, so it builds memory cells that fight the real infection fast. The main types, herd immunity and testing.
Graphite7 min read
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