Did you know you can "see" through your ears? It's true. That and more brain facts in this blog entry. Take a peek.

 

"The human brain has 100 million neurons, each neuron connected to ten thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe."

According to Wikipedia:

A Brain is an organ that serves as the centre of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals.  It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision.  It is the most complex organ in a vertebrate's body.

Except for a few primitive organisms such as sponges (which have no nervous system) and cnidarians (which have a nervous system consisting of a diffuse nerve net), all multicellular animals are "bilaterians: meaning animals with a bilaterally symmetric body shape (that is, left and right sides that are approximate mirror images of each other).  All bilaterians are thought to have descended from a common ancestor that appeared early in the Cambrian period (485-540 million years ago), and it has been hypothesised that this common ancestor had the shape of a simple tubeworm with  segmented body.

At a schematic level, that basic worm-shape continues to be reflected in the body and nervous system architecture of all modern bilaterians, including vertebrates like us. The fundamental bilateral body form is a tube with a guy cavity running from the mouth to the anus, and a nerve cord with an enlargement (a ganglion) for each body segment, with an especially large ganglion at the front, called the "brain".  The brain is small and simple in some species, such as nematode worms.  However, in other species, including vertebrates it is the most complex organ in the body.  Some types of worms, such as leeches, also have an enlarged ganglion at the back end of the nerve cord, known as a "tail brain".

According to one study: our brains have the capacity to store up to “2.5 Petabytes” of data. That's the equivalent of 3,000,000 hours of TV shows, or about the same storage as nearly 4000 256GB iPhones (the largest size available).

Did you know:

The Brain Cannot Feel Pain

Ever wonder how brain surgeons are able to perform surgeries on patients while they’re awake.  Apparently, even though the brain has layers of coverings and blood vessels that contain pain receptors, the brain itself has zero. When a person has a headache, for example, it’s often thought of as pain stemming from the brain, but this is not the case. It’s in the muscles and skin surrounding the brain.

Your brain works quickly

Your brain might account for only about 3 percent of your body weight, but it receives about 30 percent of the blood being pumped by your heart. This shows how much attention and support it requires in comparison to the other seemingly important areas of your body.  It takes the brain about 1/10,000th of a second to respond to something and generate an action.

Brain waves are more active when you sleep

When you’re fast asleep, you might think that your brain is “shut off,” but it’s actually doing a whole lot more than when you’re walking, talking, eating, and thinking.  When awake, people utilize alpha and beta waves, which gives us day wakefulness.  Sleep, however, especially in the initial stages, uses Theta activity, which is greater in amplitude than Beta.

Adult brains still create neurons

While most of our neurons have been with us since birth, and age does take a toll, your brain still makes new neurons.  This process, known as neurogenesis, occurs in a special region called the dentate gyrus.  These neurons are thought to be important for learning, memory, and responding to stress.

For quite a while these brain facts had been highly debated but a 2019 study, published in the journal “Nature Medicine”, that looked at the brain tissue of 58 recently deceased people found that the adult brain can indeed generate new neurons.

So how can you boost neurogenesis in your own brain?  Yep, it’s the old HMHB focus again: Healthy Living:  things like sleep, exercise, and a balanced diet. We may keep banging away at that drum, but every study relentlessly tells us that a healthy lifestyle is the best thing we can do for you our health.

Exercise is good for the brain

Professional athletes know how important fuelling their brain is to ensure they’re able to put maximum effort and energy into their workouts.  This is because of the mental stimulation that comes with exercise, but also because a healthy cardiovascular system means better plumbing for the brain.  Especially when you try a new fitness class or regimen for the first time, your brain is working hard at learning the motions and controlling your muscles.

You can “see” through your ears.

Yep, I know what you are thinking!!  What?? That’s crazy.

Bear with me.

Neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to reorganize and change itself throughout a person’s lifetime, is a truly remarkable thing. In one 2011 study, published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, University of Montreal researchers compared the brain activity of individuals who were born blind and those who had normal vision. They found that the part of the brain that’s normally wired to work with our eyes can instead rewire itself to process sound information instead of visual perception. Pretty cool, right?

And there is direct evidence of this.  You can go on “YouTube” and put in “blind man uses echolocation” – and there is a man using the same mechanism bats use (echolocation) so he can “see” through hearing.  He is a riding a bike and can describe objects around him!!  Honestly, it is astonishing.

The brain works back to front sometimes

I do like this one.  This brain fact might sound counterintuitive, considering your eyes are in the front of your head, but the part of your brain responsible for vision, the occipital lobe, is located in the back.  If you bang someone on the back of the head (please do not do this) they will see stars, not sounds.

Similarly, the left side of your brain controls the vision on your right side and vice versa. The same goes for how our brain processes sound; on opposite sides of the head.

Although evolutionary theories have been proposed, the bottom line is we really do not know why.  Isn’t that incredible!!!!

Our brains are getting smaller, not bigger!

This might be one of the scariest of these brain facts when you really think about it, but paleoanthropological research suggests that our brains are shrinking.  Skeletal evidence from every inhabited continent backs up this theory.

Some scientists suggest that this may be related to the fact that the average body size of humans has also shrunk in size over the last 10,000 years.  A larger body was needed before, for hunting etc. And a larger body requires a larger nervous system, so, as our bodies grew smaller, so did our brains in response.

Your brain is mostly fat!

Yep, it is true, your thinking cap is the fattiest organ in your body, consisting of a minimum of 60 percent fat.  Therefore, a diet rich in healthy fats, such as omega-3s and omega-6s, is vital for brain and overall body health.

Fat stabilizes the cell walls in the brain and carries, absorbs, and stores fat-soluble vitamins in your bloodstream.  It also reduces inflammation and helps the immune system regulate and function properly.

Your brain’s main source of energy is glucose.  So, when people say you need to cut out fat and carbohydrates from your diet, what they are really saying is to cut out the bad fats, and the naughty carbs.