• Question: what percentage of our brain do we use?

    Asked by jaeyda to Ed, Kerrianne, Nina, Oli, yoyehudi on 10 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Oli Wilson

      Oli Wilson answered on 10 Nov 2017:

      People often say we only use 10% of our brains, but that’s not actually true – while we don’t use it all at the same time, apparently we do end up using basically every part of it over the course of a day. This article seems to be quite a good exploration of the question: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/
      Then again, there’s a lot of mystery around our brains and we don’t understand them perfectly yet. Have a look at this person’s brain scan: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61127-1/fulltext He was living a normal enough life with a family and a decent job, but it seems like most of his brain just *isn’t there*! Those big dark spaces in the middle of his skull are full of fluid when they should be full of brain cells, but he seemed to be coping with life pretty well fine! Very strange, but also extremely cool 🙂

    • Photo: Kerrianne Harrington

      Kerrianne Harrington answered on 10 Nov 2017:

      Hopefully all of it ;P

    • Photo: Ed Bracey

      Ed Bracey answered on 12 Nov 2017:

      All of it! We’re not quite sure where the 10% myth started, but it’s a pretty annoying one that we can’t seem to get rid of.
      The recent film Lucy was pretty annoying because it’ll probably stop the myth from going away for a few more years yet!
      Our brains are 2% of our body weight but use about 20% of our energy.
      A lot of that energy is taken up just making sure brain cells are on standby, ready to be activated when they’re needed.
      So to have 90% of the brain on standby would cost so much energy!
      As we understand more and more about the brain, we understand more and more about what each part does. To my knowledge, we haven’t yet found a part that’s sitting there doing nothing, or waiting for some magic serum to wake it up!

      It’s a nice idea that we have a load of untapped potential in our minds.
      I think that though the myth is wrong, perhaps it feels right because so much of what our brains do goes on subconsciously.
      At any given time, your brain is taking in all sorts of information, and we’re only conscious of small portion of that.
      We can’t focus on all the things around us at one time, so we choose to focus our attention on one thing at a time.
      Think of your conscious mind like a flashlight, it’s only shining on one thing at a time, but the subconcious can probably see in the dark better than your conscious mind.
      So that might lead us to the feeling we have more going on in our minds than meets the eye!

Comments