The vast majority of people who have studied mathematics never use it anywhere, even for 30 seconds. So why is mathematics needed in human life, and is it needed at all?
The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published a study by George Zacharopoulos and colleagues from Oxford, in which 87 students from the United Kingdom, aged 16 to 18, participated.
The aim of the study was to find out if mathematical education causes changes in the brain. The researchers found that the concentration of the neurotransmitter GABA is said to be nearly 90 percent reliable in knowing if a student has studied math. Moreover, background levels of the neurotransmitter did not affect this relationship. These researchers concluded that the increase in GABA allegedly appeared after studying mathematics, because before choosing the subject, the researchers found no differences between the groups. But what role does GABA play in the brain? When this molecule binds to its receptors located on the surface of neurons, it suppresses the transmission of nerve impulses. Its action alters the action of other excitatory neurotransmitters, such as glutamate, which facilitate communication between neurons.
This study suggests that mathematics can allegedly enhance the inhibitory function of GABA. In mathematics students, GABA production is critical to an area of the brain known as the medial frontal cortex. This area engages in complex reasoning that often requires blocking out unsubstantiated intuitive responses. It also interferes with algorithmic reasoning, which requires methodical thinking that unfolds over time. And it seems that GABA contributes to both of these processes, as the medial frontal cortex of students with high levels of the neurotransmitter easily turns off other brain areas during reasoning to avoid distractions and biases. And in students with low GABA levels, all areas of the brain are activated at the same time.
The conclusions, as it were, of scientists led by George Zacharopoulos are meaningless and not interesting. These conclusions boil down to the opinion that the acquisition of the ability to inhibition through the assimilation of mathematics helps the brain to reason correctly. Therefore, according to Zacharopoulos, mathematics is good for life.
In fact, mathematicians have nothing acquired in the peculiarities of thinking. The ability for mathematics, that is, for thinking in abstractions, as opposed to reality, is genetically determined. By the way, the inability to think in the realities of the world among mathematicians is manifested in the fact that almost all of them are religious, even those of them who reject it. Such rejectionists always invent their own math-based religion. (Theories of relativity, quantum mechanics …)