brain traffic

English

Noun

brain traffic (uncountable)

1. The movement and coordination of internal signals that govern the working of the body and mind, especially neural impulses and hormones.
   • 1969, A. E. Wilder-Smith, The drug users: the psychopharmacology of turning on, page 217:

     In our healthy astronaut normal brain traffic is ordinarily so heavy that it swamps completely any weak trickle via the reducing valve. Therefore he is never normally subject to "imaginations."

   • 1996, Karl J. Abrams, Algae to the Rescue:

     When a large amount of one amino acid is administered, the delicate balance of amino acid "brain traffic" becomes distorted.

   • 2011, John Pollack, The Pun Also Rises:

     Most of this brain traffic, healthy or otherwise, consists of specialized messenger cells, called neurons, which transmit electrical and chemical signals to other cells throughout the brain, muscles and other parts of the body.

2. (figurative) Ability to think, with emphasis on the limited capacity and speed a person is capable of, analogous to the limits of a road system for handling vehicular traffic.
   • 1999, John Darrell Sherwood, Fast Movers: America's Jet Pilots and the Vietnam Experience, page 58:

     The intensity of the radio noise, the vital nature of the decisions that have to be made — right now — the requirement for accelerated brain traffic; they were often more than a guy could effectively handle.

   • 1906, Carl Sandburg, Tomorrow Magazine:

     The Sea-Wolf bore down on me for all my brain-traffic would bear.

3. Discussion of ideas, especially over the internet.
   • 1929, QST - Volume 13, Issues 1-6, page 40:

     This smile brought another problem of how to put a new guy at the top of the mast without lowering the mast. Much brain traffic was handled. Many books and journals were consulted including our great amateur Bible, QST

   • 1974, The Daily Review - Volume 20:

     But the system continues operating. "Brain traffic" is developing. It spreads to the widest range of specialists, from a rank-and-file engineer to a prominent scientist; from an ordinary manager of a plant to an executive of a national corporation.

   • 2001, Government Executive - Volume 33, Issues 9-15, page 44:

     To tie knowledge management directly to the university's nervous system, Nielsen created a Web site for its employees that acts as a brain traffic controller.

   • 2013, Laura Stack, Focusing on Your Work, page 13:

     They don't let themselves get distracted by brain traffic, emails, or interruptions.