Your brain is incredible. It’s not a static machine. It’s not limited to the wiring you were...
Oscar Forrester
Very Big Brain is written by Oscar Forrester, a researcher and writer with a long-standing fascination with how the brain works. Oscar spent several years working in hospital IT, including on infection control systems, and grew up in a household shaped by medicine — his father was a physician and his mother a registered nurse. He is not a clinician himself, and nothing on this site should be taken as medical advice. What he brings instead is a rigorous, source-first approach to research, honed over two decades of writing (he’s authored numerous published books, primarily on software development), and a genuine curiosity about the science of cognition. Mr. Forrester strives to present complex topics in a clear and engaging manner, making it easy for you to understand and apply the knowledge to your daily life.
On days when focus feels slippery, the problem is not just in your head. The heart and...
Executive function is the quiet conductor of your day. It does not play an instrument, it points...
Attention is a moving target. Some days it feels like you are steering a steady canoe across...
Some days you can lock in for an hour and feel steady from start to finish, then...
Your brain runs on oxygen the way a city runs on fuel. When a neighborhood gets busy,...
Yes, recalling dreams can enhance creative problem-solving because dreams often connect distant ideas in novel ways, and...
How many times have you said, “I’m just too busy” this week? Or maybe it’s, “I can’t...
You can think of your brain as a busy city. Electrical activity zips around like traffic lights...
Yes, brief micro-naps of 10–20 minutes can improve learning efficiency by boosting alertness, enhancing memory consolidation, and...