The Neuroscience Of Smurfs

I dreamt of Smurfs doing neuroscience.

Before you ask, I don't remember the dream. I don't usually remember my dreams, to be honest. But it was probably very fresh in my mind when I tweeted about it much too early in the morning. To be fair, I think I tweeted about it more for my own record than to tell the world about it. But what do I know about my sleepy five A.M self?

Thinking about it now though, the idea of Smurfs doing neuroscience is so cool. I mean Smurfs... and neuroscience: there couldn't be two more random and different things.

Just imagine Papa Smurf walking around and diagnosing Smurfs in Smurf village.

Brainy Smurf:

"Ah, my apprentice who already believes he knows more than I do. Assuming that the Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory [link to pdf] is correct, well, I must say that his white matter connections between his brain regions are quite good indeed. His temporal and occipital lobes process information from what he sees and hears. Then his pariental cortex filters what is important and puts everything in context. Not to forget that the pariental cortex is also discussing with the frontal regions to process the information and obtain solutions to all the problems he seems to think of. Powerful stuff. Yes, yes, I am indeed very intelligent... I mean Brainy Smurf is indeed quite intelligent..."

Scaredy Smurf:

"Oh well, a little problem with his amygdala perhaps. Much too responsive... much too responsive, I'm afraid. Poor him. Living in fear of anything. But to be fair, he is living amongst little blue half-naked beings. If that's not scary, what is?"

Dreamy Smurf:

"Oh and here's the ‘fantasizer.' What is happening in his brain? So many theories, so little answers. Activation synthesis theory, continual-activation theory, excitations of long-term memory, strengthening of semantic memories and so on and so on. Thank god there's Wikipedia. Oh yes, Smurfs have God and Wikipedia too. And wireless. And only one woman."

Smurfette:

"Her immaculate facial symmetry and Smurf waist-to-smurf hip ratio. She was drawn by Smurf God himself, no doubt. She's just so perfect! There's nothing wrong with her. When I see her, regions of my temporal lobe spring into action: my amygdala orchestrates those powerful emotions, my hippocampus reminds me of that first kiss [a little bit of a perv, Papa Smurf!]. My brain goes berserk as my vision-processing centers communicate to the centers of emotion and regions of self-awareness. And my ‘higher regions,' recognizing her intense beauty, dictates my visual cortex to be so much more sensitive...

Ahem. And with this, I might have just diagnosed all the Smurfs in this village."

Anyone wants to diagnose Papa Smurf?