The human brain is responsible for maintaining the functions of your body throughout the day. Not only does it help people think and learn new things, but it also controls your movement and speech.
The brain, as part of the central nervous system, receives an incredible amount of information, and how powerful it is is still being explored.
These are just some of the interesting facts about this organ that you may not have known.
The brain cannot feel pain
Have you ever wondered how neurosurgeons are able to perform operations on patients while they are awake?
Neurologist Beth McWinston, head of diagnostics at the health company Abbott, explains that although the brain has layers and blood vessels that contain pain receptors, it does not have the ability to feel that pain.
For example, when a person has a headache, it is often considered a pain that arises from the brain, but that is not really the case. However, the muscles and skin that surrounds the brain can feel pain.
The brain is greedy
Your brain can only account for about three percent of your body weight, but it receives about 30 percent of the blood that your heart pumps. It shows how much attention and support you need compared to other seemingly important parts of your body.
"The brain is like a spoiled and demanding child, but it is still extremely smart and efficient," explains Bennett Omalu, a forensic pathologist, neuropathologist, epidemiologist and clinical professor at the University of California, adding:
"It takes the brain about 1 / 10,000th of a second to react to something and initiate action."
Brain waves are even more active while you dream. You may think that your brain "shuts off" when you sleep, but in fact it then does much more than when you walk, talk, eat or think.
"When they're awake, people use alpha and beta waves, which gives us daily alertness," explains Brandon Brock, a certified family medical technician.
"Sleep, however, especially in the initial stages, uses theta activity, which is bigger than Beta," explains Brock.
The brain of adults continues to create new neurons
Although most of our neurons have been with us since birth, and the years take their toll, your brain still creates new neurons.
This process, known as neurogenesis, scientifically recognized since 1944, occurs in a special region called the "gyrus dentatus" and is part of the hippocampus. These neurons are thought to be important for learning, memory, and stress response. "
Almost half of a child's energy goes to powering the brain
In order for the brain to work at a top level, it needs significant amounts of energy. This is especially true for young children who are still learning and developing quickly.
Scientists at Northwestern University recently discovered that in preschool, when a child’s brain is faster, physical growth is slower, perhaps to save more energy for the developing brain. Conversely, during puberty, when body growth is faster, brain development is slower.
You can "see" through your ears
Neuroplasticity or the ability of the brain to reorganize and change during a person's life is truly an extraordinary thing.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Montreal compared the brain activity of people who were born blind and those who had normal vision.
They found that the part of the brain that is normally revitalized to work with our eyes can instead be reshaped to process sound information instead of visual perception.
Your brain activity is as unique as your fingerprints
Research published in the journal Nature Neuroscience suggests that a person's brain activity can be as unique as his or her fingerprints.
To reach that conclusion, the scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to create a "connection profile", which allowed the researchers to identify the brain activity of more than 100 people.
Our brain is smaller than the brain of our ancestors
When you think about it, this could be one of the scariest of these facts, but paleoanthropological research indicates that our brains are shrinking.
Skeletal evidence from all inhabited continents supports this theory. Some scientists suggest that this may be related to the fact that the average body size of people has also decreased in the last 10,000 years, writes The Healthy.
"A bigger body requires a bigger nervous system, so as our bodies shrank, so did our brains," says neurosurgeon Donald Krif.
The brain produces enough electricity to power a small light bulb
"Neurons in the brain generate enough electricity to run one smaller light bulb - 100 billion cells generate this amount of energy," explains Brock.
I know almost all stuff from here. But good post!