The Human Brain—a spongy, three pound mass of tissue—is
the most complex living organism in the universe. Over the last few decades,
scientists understanding of the brain and the nervous system and understanding
of brain-based disorders has increased exponentially. Neuroscientists are using
new tools and technologies to find out how the brain controls and responds to
the body. The brain is not just any tissue—it is The Tissue; the most important
tissue in the human body. Over the years researches in the field of Neurology
has led to mind boggling facts about the brain. Below are just a few facts
about what your brain and my brain can do.
- · Inside each human brain are approximately 86 billion neurons interconnected by more than 100 trillion synapses (estimated since no one has counted them yet), which science has only barely begun to understand.
- · Your Brain started developing almost immediately after conception. During the first months of your mother’s pregnancy, your body was creating neurons at the rate of about 400 million per day.
- · Your brain generates electricity constantly, enough every waking minute to keep a low-wattage light bulb fully lit. So when you say, “That’s a bright idea,” you statement could be literally as well as figuratively true.
- · Sensory signals move along an alpha motor neuron in your spinal cord at 268 miles per hour (mph). This is the fastest transmission of this type in the body. Skin sensory receptors, which travel at about 1 mph, are among the slowest in the body because they do not have myelin sheath, which would insulate them and boost their speed.
- · The Brain of a normal twenty-year-old human possesses 100,000 miles of myelin-covered nerve fibres.
- · Your brain can feel no pain because it has no pain receptors. The organ that controls the whole nervous system, and it can’t feel pain! This is why we can operate on the brain without worrying about the pain level of the patient. It’s also the reason we can perform surgery on people who are awake, as they feel absolutely nothing.
- · Harvard University neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman, who is attempting to map the brain, has calculated that several million petabytes of data storage would be needed to index the entire human brain.
When scientists try to
quantify the capacity of the human brain, the numbers get so high that we can’t
get our minds around them. The potential of your mind is literally
mindboggling. There is no super computer on earth that can come close to the
capacity of the average human brain. There are hundreds more neural connections
in our brains than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The brain sorts,
organises, and warehouses that deluge of sensory data flooding in at millions
of bytes per second. It’s the control and command center for all of our senses,
all our other organs, our body temperature, and the operation of every system
in the human body—respiratory, circulatory, and more. Much more. Most of this work
the brain does automatically without a thought (literally) from us.
The brain is not just another
part of the body—it is what makes us who we are. It is what holds all our
memories, all our thoughts, and all our dreams. This is what makes us different
from each other in millions of ways.
