Do we really only use 10% of our brain?

yusvelasquez(69)

Published in

STEMGeeks

Words

865

Reading

4 min

Listen to this post

~6 min

Hello friends

I recently saw the movie Lucy, a 2014 science fiction film starring Scarlett Johansson, in which, because of an experimental drug, the character begins to progressively use a greater capacity of her brain, until she uses 100% of her brain activity, and according to the plot of the movie, this confers superhuman powers. The truth is that the film echoes something we have often heard, that we only use 10% of our brain, and that if we used 100% we would be amazed at the results, but is it true, do we only use 10% of our brain?

Source: Wikimedia.org.

If it were so, and we could really get to use our brain to its fullest capacity, would we then be like Einstein? or perhaps we would awaken those telekinetic powers that many pseudosciences talk about; the truth is that no, that phrase is a great myth, contrary to what popular culture has made us believe, we use our whole brain, this is just one of many myths, or half-truths, that surround the brain, like others we have heard, others like those phrases that say that women have a sixth sense, that the size of the brain determines intelligence or that listening to Mosart makes us smarter.

Source: Wikipedia.org

What is true is that perhaps we know very little about our brain, but if we use all this organ, that myth has been disproved by science and is only based on superficial interpretations of some facts or expressions of people linked to the study of the brain, which were then supported by doctrines that give room for those alleged telepathic superpowers that lie dormant or a super intelligence to which we have not been able to access.

Among the evidence that debunks this myth we can mention:

Only slight brain damage has profound consequences; if the brain had so much useless or unoccupied space, we would not see so many effects in patients who have suffered some kind of brain injury.
Images generated by CT and MRI scans show that the brain is very active, even when we sleep. A simple movement, such as picking something up with the hands, requires triggering different regions of the brain, which control different functions, to achieve the necessary hand-eye coordination. If 90% of the brain were turned off, a large inactive region would be found in such imaging and mapping techniques.
On the other hand, different regions of the brain are activated when executing different functions, and when all these regions are added together they add up to 100%.
Our brain consumes a large amount of energy compared to the rest of the body, if 90% of it were unnecessary evolution would have made it smaller and more efficient, but records have shown that our brain increased in size with the evolution of our species, with the first members of the genus Homo having about 700 cm3 of volume and increasing to about 1000 cm3 in H. erectus. To think that we have a brain 10 times larger than necessary is strange.

Source: Wikimedia.org.

Perhaps the myth is based on the fact that the whole brain is not used at the same time, there are specialized regions for each function, and they are activated according to demand, so it is possible that under certain circumstances some regions are not working, but the brain is always active almost in its entirety. Even when it is not supposed to be doing anything, such as when we are asleep, the brain is very busy controlling functions such as breathing or heartbeat, or creating dreams.

Other possible sources for this myth may be a misinterpretation of the fact that neurons make up about 10% of brain cells, the rest being glial cells, which were classically thought to provide only structural and metabolic support, but are now known to function differently from neurons and even participate in the learning process. The words of the philosopher William James, who argued that "we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources", may also have been misrepresented, and it has even been said that these were the words of Einstein himself, but no one has been able to corroborate this.

The truth is that it is a myth that has become popular, perhaps because we find it very attractive to believe that in some magical way we could become more intelligent if we could take advantage of that 90% that is being wasted, or because many self-help gurus use it as a justification to sell us some method to access a greater mental power, to be more efficient or successful.

But unfortunately it is not true, nothing is being wasted, certainly we can all be better, if we train and prepare ourselves to achieve it, it will not be because we find an unused part of the brain.

Well friends, I hope you liked the reading. See you next time!