1. The typical brain is about 2 per cent of a body’s weight but uses 20 per cent of its total energy and oxygen intake.
  2. Your brain is 73 per cent water. It takes only 2 per cent dehydration to affect your attention, memory and other cognitive skills.
  4. Your brain weighs about 3 pounds. Of that, the dry weight is 60 per cent fat, making your brain the fattiest organ.
  5. 25 per cent of the body’s cholesterol resides within the brain. Cholesterol is an integral part of every brain cell. Without adequate cholesterol, brain cells die.
  7. Each neuron connects with, on average, 40,000 synapses.
  10. Only 5 minutes without oxygen can cause brain damage.
  12. As any parent can attest, teen brains are not fully formed until about the age of 25.
  13. Brain information moves at an impressive 260 miles per hour. This is faster than Formula 1 race cars which top out at 240 mph.
  14. Your brain generates about 12-25 watts of electricity. Contrary to popular belief, this is not enough to power the average light bulb of 60 watts.
  15. The average brain has around 50,000 thoughts per day and 70 o’er cent of them are believed to be negative.
  16. More than 100,000 chemicals reactions take place in your brain every second.
  17. In general, men’s brains are 10 per cent bigger than women’s, even after taking into account larger body size.
  18. Albert Einstein’s brain weighed in at 2.71 pounds — 10% smaller than the average of 3 pounds.
  19. Neanderthal brains were 10% larger than our homo sapiens brains.
  20. Humans don’t have the biggest brains. That honour belongs to sperm whales with 17 pound brains.
  21. Our brains are getting smaller. Over the past 10-20,000 years, the size of the average human brain has shrunk by the size of a tennis ball.
  22. We are not getting smarter. Since the Victorian era, average IQs have gone down 1.6 points per decade for a total of 13.35 points.
  23. Multitasking makes you less productive. When you multitask, your brain simply rapidly toggles back and forth between tasks. This results in decreases in attention span, learning, performance, and short-term memory.
  25. We’ve always compared the brain to the most advanced technology of the day. It’s been compared to a clock, a switchboard, a computer, and most recently to the internet.
  28. The popular myth that we use only 10 per cent of our brains is flat-out wrong. Brain scans clearly show that we use most of our brain most of the time, even when we’re sleeping.
  29. There is no such thing as a left-brain or right-brain personality type. We are not left-brained or right-brained; we are “whole brained.”
  31. The Mozart Effect has been debunked. While listening to certain kinds of music can improve memory and concentration, there’s nothing unique about listening to Mozart.
  32. You may have heard that we have more brain cells than there are stars in the Milky Way, but this is not true. Best guess estimates are that we have 86 billion neurons and there are 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way.
  33. It’s often said there are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain when it fact that number is closer to 400 miles. Still a substantial amount!
  34. Contrary to prevailing medical belief, having high total cholesterol is not bad for your brain. In fact it actually reduces your risk of dementia.
  37. Your brain starts slowing down at the ripe old age of 24 but peaks for different cognitive skills at different ages. In fact at any given age, you’re likely getting better at some things and worse at others.
  38. If you were drinking and don’t remember what you did last night, it’s not because you forgot. While you are drunk your brain is incapable of forming memories.
  39. The human brain is not solid. It’s soft and squishy similar to the consistency of soft tofu or soft gelatin. And it’s very fragile.
  40. One half a brain is a good as a whole one. When surgeons perform a hemispherectomy, they remove or disable half of the brain to stop seizures. Shockingly, patients experience no effect on personality or memory.
  41. Think you’re in control of your life? Think again. 95 per cent of your decisions take place in your subconscious mind.
  42. The brain in your head isn’t your only brain. There’s a “second brain” in your intestines that contains 100,000 neurons. Gut bacteria are responsible for making over 30 neurotransmitters including the “happy” molecule serotonin.
  43. Some scientists believe zombies could be real and that it’s possible a mutated virus could attack our brains and rapidly spread throughout large populations causing essentially a “zombie apocalypse.”
  44. A blood-brain barrier protects your brain from foreign substances. But it doesn’t work perfectly. The nicotine in smoke rushes into the brain in a mere 7 seconds. Alcohol on the other hand takes 6 minutes.
  45. Prescription sleeping pills don’t put you to sleep. They put your brain into a state similar to being in a coma. This essentially bypasses any restorative value of sleep.
  46. Over 140 proteins in the brain are negatively impacted by exposure to electromagnetic frequencies — the kind emitted by your cell phone, electronics, and other electrical devices.
  48. Few facts about the brain are as weird as the story of Albert Einstein’s brain. The pathologist who performed Einstein’s autopsy kept the brain in a jar in his basement for 40 years. Eventually he made a cross country trip with the brain in a Tupperware container to deliver it to Einstein’s granddaughter.

Source: Amazing Human Brain Facts

Author: Yemi Olarinre