Unraveling the Brain’s Secrets

Associate Professor Ruth Grahn has made a connection between “neuons and knitting.” Professor Grahn is an avid knitter and spinner and teaches all her behavioral neuroscience students to knit.

[from the Connecticut College magazine]

Why do you have the students in your Behavioral Neuroscience course learn to knit?

Students don´t expect to encounter knitting on the first day of a college class, so I like to surprise them with a lesson. It gets discussion started on all kinds of neuroscience topics. One that always comes up is memory.

The lesson takes the students through the course as they talk about types of memory and motor systems. Knitting requires the fingers to process a lot of information.

See? Knitting makes you smarter. 🙂

Knitted brain photo from The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art and Karen Norberg