In this article, you'll learn 50 fun facts about the brain that you probably didn't know, based on research. Although it has been studied for years, due to its complexity the brain remains largely a mystery to science.
Now it is in fashion and it is increasingly common to see articles or research revealing some of its mysteries, which are used to explain psychological phenomena. However, there is a lot of data that is not discovered until you delve into its study.
Fun facts about the brain
1- The number of neurons in the adult human brain can be compared to the number of trees in the Amazon, while the number of connections or synapses is equivalent to the number of leaves of these trees.
This in figures translates to about 86 billion neurons while, if we talk about glial cells, the number increases about 10 times more.
2- On the other hand, a single neuron can establish about 20,000 synapses. In the adult brain, there are approximately 100 to 500 trillion connections; while a newborn reaches the quadrillion.
3- The newborn has almost twice as many neurons as an adult.
4- The brain consumes glucose to function, and uses 20% of the body's oxygen.
5- This organ is continuously producing electrical impulses, even if we are asleep or at rest. With the energy generated by the brain, a 20-watt light bulb could be turned on.
6- The human brain weighs approximately 1300 or 1400 grams. To give us an idea, our brain weighs more than that of a monkey (located at about 95 grams). But less than that of an elephant (6000 grams). On the other hand, the brain of a cat weighs 30 grams and that of a dog 72.
7- However, in proportion, the human being has a much larger brain compared to the size of his body. In fact, the brain makes up 2% of the total body weight.
8- The cerebral cortex is the largest part of the brain, constituting 85% of the brain weight.
9- The brain is an organ that has the greatest amount of fat (due to myelin). In fact, 40% of this is gray matter (cell bodies themselves and dendrites). While 60% is white matter.
10- 75% of the brain is water.
11- The process of evolution is reflected in your brain: the innermost (deep) or reptilian part is in charge of the most basic and instinctive processes, then there is the limbic system in charge of emotional processing, and then there is the layer outermost where the cerebral cortex is located, which is responsible for more complex functions and is an evolutionarily newer region, which makes us more rational.
12- The nervous system begins to form about 18 days after conception, and develops during the first 20 weeks of gestation through a process called neurogenesis. Starting at week 20, neuronal growth and maturation occurs.
13- In the first weeks of the development of the fetus, more than 200 thousand neurons are produced per minute.
14- In the newborn, the brain is almost the same size as that of an adult and already contains neurons that will be present for the rest of life.
15- It is calculated that the maximum number of neurons is reached at approximately two years of age, and from there they are gradually lost due to a process called apoptosis, which we will talk about later.
16- About 150 days of gestation, the first furrows of the cerebral cortex are produced. Around 180 days, the secondary grooves are born and the first myelination occurs.
17- The brain develops by areas, so that the most primitive and interior areas grow first and later those of greater complexity and evolution, such as the cerebral cortex. In fact, the last part to develop is the prefrontal area.
18- Until adulthood the nervous system does not stop growing, approximately until the age of 21 or more. This growth occurs differently according to age (faster in childhood) and has peaks of myelination in different parts of the brain depending on the evolutionary stage.
19- The myelination of an area corresponds to its development and, therefore, when it begins to be used by humans. For example, as the motor areas are myelinated, the child will achieve more and more precise and controlled movements.
20- Glial cells continue to grow after birth.
21- The first sense that develops is touch, which begins to appear in the fetal stage. Around 8 weeks of gestation, the lips and cheeks can already feel the contact, although there are authors who have already identified sensitivity in the mouth at 6 weeks. By week 12, the whole body is sensitive except the crown and back.
22- The frontal lobe is the last part to reach development, the one that develops more slowly and the first to deteriorate over the years.
23- The whole process of the growth of the person and, consequently of his brain, is totally influenced by genetic and epigenetic aspects that we receive from our mother and father. At the same time, stimuli from both the intrauterine and extrauterine environment act. Ultimately, the nervous system extends its development by interacting with the environment and with genetically programmed events.
24- Intelligence is an aspect that is also modulated by environmental and genetic factors, but as the years go by, the genetic aspect has more weight. That way, you tend to have an IQ more similar to your parents as you get older.
25- An enriched environment for the child, which implies that the little one is surrounded by different experiences, toys, books, music, teachings, etc. it is enormously beneficial for the brain in terms of connections and learning. Whereas a poor environment where there is no adequate stimulation, it can cause the brain to not reach its full potential.
26- There are periods that are necessary to learn certain skills, called critical periods. In these moments, the brain prepares to receive knowledge, such as language. And the child is surprisingly adept at acquiring them, like a sponge absorbing all available information.
However, if these periods pass and the little one is not taught, it may be very difficult or even impossible for him to learn the skill. This happens, for example, with language.
27- Only 5 minutes without oxygen are enough for brain injuries to occur.
28- Once a brain injury occurs, new neurons will not be born. However, your whole brain will be working to compensate for the loss through a new way of organizing. This occurs due to a phenomenon called plasticity.
29- There is a natural mechanism of neuronal death called apoptosis that occurs in all people. When we are born, we have twice as many neurons as we are going to use; that is, we have "spare neurons, just in case." Subsequently, each one is placed in its rightful place inside the nervous system and then they establish connections, organizing themselves. Once these processes are finished, the excess neurons are eliminated.
30- Curiously and, together with the above, in the prenatal stage most neurons die in some areas of the spinal cord and brain.
31- Our brain recovers faster from injuries when we are children than adults. That is, children have more brain plasticity.
32- It is known that after a period no new neurons are born, they only die. However, it has recently been discovered that there is neuronal proliferation or neurogenesis (creation of neurons) in some areas of the brain, such as the olfactory bulb. It is something that is currently under investigation.
33- Our brain is dynamic, it is constantly changing. While we are doing any task, new synapses are continually being created.
34- Do you know when an apprenticeship is set? While we sleep, it can already be a nap of an hour or a whole night. This is why resting is so important. There are several very interesting investigations about it, showing that after a few hours of intense learning we have more REM sleep. That this learning can be consolidated up to several days after having trained it, just as it performs worse in the activity learned if there is sleep deprivation.
This happens because our brain "relives" what we have learned during sleep, a quiet period where no interference from outside information is received. That way, the same neural circuits that were activated when you learned the task are activated. Thanks to chemical and electrical mechanisms, memories are stored in a more stable way in the brain.
35- The capacity of our brain seems to be unlimited.
36- There are no receptors for pain in the brain itself, that is, this organ cannot feel pain.
37- Before 8 or 9 months of age, babies are ready to acquire any language and are sensitive to all sounds and intonations. However, after this period, they adapt to the sounds of their mother tongue, making it much more difficult for them to distinguish syllables from other languages. As you get older, it becomes more difficult to learn a new language.
38- We can recognize their emotional state in the faces of other people without having to say anything to ourselves, even in photographs. This task seems to develop mainly thanks to a structure called the amygdala, which is very important in emotional learning.
39- As we learn something, the volume of certain brain areas can increase at the same time as the number of synapses increases. This is manifested very clearly with the famous studies on the brains of London taxi drivers. They seem to have a greater volume in a certain part of the hippocampus (region related to spatial orientation and memory) than those that are not taxi drivers.
40- Our brain has the empathic ability to predict what another person is going to do or how they are feeling. For example, there are studies that show that when we see a person walking, the same areas in our brain are activated as the individual who walks, but much more slightly. This is due to mirror neurons, so called because they "reflect" the actions of other people.
41- The perception of heat, cold or pain is subjective and interpreted by our brain. Each person can develop a different threshold based on their experiences. In fact, there are curious cases of congenital insensitivity to pain.
42- Have you ever wondered why we yawn? It seems that yawning is carried out with the aim of sending more oxygen to the brain and thus "cooling it down", maintaining optimal functioning.
43- There are two cerebral hemispheres, the right and the left, which are connected to each other by structures such as the corpus callosum. These are asymmetrical, especially depending on the area.
44- Normally, the left hemisphere becomes more specialized in language as we age, while the right one analyzes mainly non-verbal aspects (such as visuospatial information or voice intonation). This does not mean, of course, that the right cannot process language, or the left non-linguistic keys. Only they are more specialized in certain tasks.
45- Brain asymmetry is usually more noticeable in men than in women, but it cannot be denied that this can vary from person to person.
46- Children have a lower level of hemispheric asymmetry than adults.
47- The less hemispheric asymmetry (as happens in children and women), the easier it is to recover a function after brain damage, since the functions are more “distributed” between both hemispheres, a greater damage that covers more will be needed structures to lose any skills.
48- It is said that, in the right-handed, the dominant (or language) hemisphere is the left hemisphere. In lefties, on the other hand, the dominant hemisphere is the right. However, this issue generates controversy since this does not happen in all cases.
49- It is false that we only use 10% of our brain. In fact, we always use 100% of it, what happens is that some areas are activated more than others depending on the activity we perform.
There is much evidence that this is not correct. For example, assuming that 90% of the brain is not used, when a brain injury occurs in some of these inactive areas it would not affect our abilities. However, it is known that whenever any part of the brain is injured, some skill is lost.
Another proof, among others, is that using different brain imaging techniques have not yet found areas that have no activity, except when there is brain damage.
50- There is no relationship between intelligence and brain size. We can take the example we mentioned earlier: the elephant's brain is much larger than that of humans, however, that does not imply that it has greater intelligence.
References
- Azevedo, F., Carvalho, L., Grinberg, L., Farfel, J., Ferretti, R., Leite, R., &… Herculano-Houzel, S. (nd). Equal Numbers of Neuronal and Nonneuronal Cells Make the Human Brain an Isometrically Scaled-Up Primate Brain. Journal Of Comparative Neurology, 513 (5), 532-541
- Bustamante Zuleta, E. (2007). The nervous system: from neurons to the human brain. Medellín: University of Antioquia.
- Brain data. (sf). Retrieved on August 1, 2016, from Innovation & Creativity Development
- Rosselli, M., Matute, E. and Ardila, A. (2013). Neuropsychology of child development. Mexico DF, Mexico: Modern Manual.
- Voytek, B. (May 20, 2013). Are There Really as Many Neurons in the Human Brain as Stars in the Milky Way? Obtained from Nature.
- Xantopol, M. (March 28, 2016). OTHER CURIOSITIES ABOUT THE HUMAN BRAIN. Obtained from Mixfit.
- 100 Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About the Human Brain. (sf). Retrieved on August 1, 2016, from Nursing Assistant Central
- 11 Curiosities About The Brain. (April 11, 2016). Obtained from Science4you.