Local doctor uses Brain Balloon as education tool

The average human brain weighs 3.5 pounds and is 80 percent water. The world's largest brain weighs 1,100 pounds and is mostly air. It's also color-coded and will be floating over Cape Girardeau sometime this month.

The Brain Balloon, a hot-air balloon shaped like the brain, stands more than 10 stories tall.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Scott R. Gibbs, with Southeast Missouri Hospital's Regional Brain and Spine Center, came up with the idea of an anatomically correct hot air balloon to highlight the human brain. It was first inflated in 2001 in Cape Girardeau and has been to Oregon, Atlanta, San Diego and even Albuquerque, N. M., for the International Balloon Fiesta.

"It's traveled more than I have," Gibbs said.

Gibbs said the balloon is the most intricately and elaborately designed hot air balloon ever made by Aerostar International, a South Dakota-based manufacturer of hot air balloons, military and aerospace products. The balloon's purpose is more than just aesthetic intricacy, though.

"It's really just to supersize the message that our brain is our highest asset," Gibbs said.

He has been spreading the word about brain importance for years.

"It is thought to be the most complex organized matter in the entire known universe," he said.

Gibbs promotes the use of helmets to protect the brain during sports and horseback or bicycle riding, where the risk for head injury is prevalent.

"I've seen devastating head injuries in every one of those sports," Gibbs said.

During educational programs, children often tell him that the skull is a few inches thick, but Gibbs said the thickest part of the human skull is no more than a centimeter. The temple area is only half a millimeter thick, making it prone to fracture easily.

Hence baseball helmets that curve around to cover the temple, Gibbs said.

Aside from protecting the shell covering the brain, people can ward off deterioration of the organ itself. Good nutrition, good health and active learning all help strengthen the brain, Gibbs said.

Good nutrition will help overall body functions like blood flow and glucose levels. Healthy blood pressure will regulate blood flow to the brain, which uses more blood than the heart, Gibbs said.

"You have to take care of the things that take care of your brain," he said. Active learning as you age will also help keep the brain sharp.

"The brain ages and changes," he said, "but doesn't have to be for the worse."

Both the Alzheimer's Association and the AARP advocate learning new skills to slow the onset of dementia.

"If you're constantly learning something new, something you've never done before, your brain will be making new synapses," Gibbs said.

Synapses are the connection between two nerves. When a thought is fired, a new connection is made.

"It's true that as each minute or hour elapses, you lose cells," Gibbs said. "But you can make hundreds of thousands, even millions of new synapses."

Though nothing has been exclusively ruled "brain food," there are dietary items that boost performance. One popular option: caffeine.

"My favorite choice is chocolate," Gibbs said.

Fish and dark-skinned fruits high in antioxidants will also help the brain, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

charris@semissouiran.com

335-6611, extension 246