How I was born

I was born in the axon hillock

Of an unassuming neuron

Who decided to play with

A few sodium channels.

 

And when she started pulsating

And oscillatiing with the

Ionic imbalance scintillating through her,

She decided to hire a babysitting neuron

To take care of me as I played.

 

As I wreaked havoc

On some unsuspecting ions

That strayed nearby,

I became too much for her to handle.

And then she started the cycle

Of pushing me away.

No baby sitter could handle my current,

And as they passed me around in a circle,

I was curiously named by my mother as

'Thought cycle'

 

When she thought I had grown big enough,

She sent me off to the Papez

School of emotions.

It is a big circular palace,

With many large halls.

 

There, I got my first proper training

At the hippocampus,

And, on graduating with flying colors,

Was gifted a few

Cool accessories

Which they described as

"Long term memories".

 

I was then on my way to the thalamus,

Where I learned how to be fast,

And disappear when disturbed.

They made me run to the

Singularly named 'cingulate' hall

For advanced classes on emotion.

 

And when I finally finished my

Emotional education,

I was rechristened

'Thought'.

They apparently didn't like the 'cycle'.

 

I was then guided to the two friends

Wernicke and Broca,

Who were famed for always arguing

That the other was more important.

They were long term colleagues

With offices on the opposite sides

Of the same cerebral hemisphere.

 

I first went to

Meet the cheery old

Mr.Broca, who was never short

On banter.

He gave me

A few high quality fabrics for tailoring

And some cool looking sunglasses,

And sent me along the

Arcuate highway

To meet Mr.Wernicke,

Who stitched a perfect suit,

And, wanting a piece of the action,

Suggested I call myself

'Words';

He then sent me back

To Mr.Broca

With a tie, 

Who then proceeded

To give me a few words of solid advice,

And dusted the grime

Off my shoulders,

And, renaming me one final time,

Sent me out via the white mater,

To the peripheral nerves,

Who obeyed him

And stimulated many muscles

To deliver me

To the outside world.

 

What, you ask, did he name me?

'Poem'.

 

Author's Note

I thought I should add a few descriptions here, to those who aren't accustomed to reading so much useless medical jargon!

The axon hillock is the most electroconductive part of a neuron - a nerve cell. Nerve cells conduct electricity by opening and closing channels that allow Sodium inside the cell.

The Papez circuit is the circuit in the brain which is responsible for emotions. It belongs to a particular system called the Limbic System. Wiki gives a reasonably good description of it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papez_circuit

The Wernicke's and Broca's areas are the speech recognition and production centres respectively. The Wernicke's area is responsible for forming intelligent replies, and the Broca's area formulates the appropriate words, and sends the output to the nerves that modulate speech.

Reviews

[Alana]

Haha! Oh, I ADORE this! Incredibly clever, incredibly witty, and incredible period. I honestly want to print this off and show it to my psych prof. I don't really have anything constructive to say, you simply smashed the world of science with the world of art, and I love it.

[thedaydreamer]

:D... As I read this creation of yours an efferent smile maintained to be stimulated by my CNS and the Na-K ion exchange kept my smiling muscles intact as if they have got relaxed for eternity. :)

Really ... it was fun reading this sort of poetry. Very good. You are certainly got the heck of our nervous system.

Specially, I loved how you depicted each moment of creation-of-thought-conversion-into-words-and-thus-a-poem. Wonderful. Also the relativity to real life is very creative of you. When I started reading, after the stimulus ran out of the axon through the ganglia... and when you mentioned about the ion exchange I was thinking if it was about the journey of a sperm and the ion exchange is about that of contraction of muscles in the pelvis. :D And as I read till the end, it came out even more clean and beautiful.

Great job mate... Will me watching you.

[Wicahpi]

Ingenious even for my small mindedness !

[Middling]

An intersting peise, you convey your characteristics in your making creation. I'm not really that up on science and medicine to tell the truth though!