Facts About the Brain

On April 24, 2012

The brain consists of three parts:

  • Forebrain – controls all thoughts, senses, motor, functions, emotions & hunger
  • Midbrain – controls auditory and visual reflexes as well as awareness
  • Hindbrain – controls coordination and analysis of senses

The brain has two hemispheres:

  • left for analytical thoughts
  • right for creative thoughts

The belief that we only use 10% of our brains is a myth. Every portion has a function and is hard at work.

If the brain were a hard drive, it would hold 4 terabytes of information.

20% of the oxygen you inhale is used by your brain.

Your brain has 100.000 miles worth of blood vessels (enough to circle Earth four times) and 100 billion neurons (these cells are known as the gray matter which process information).

Learning a second language before age 5 changes how the brain will develop later in life. These children’s brains are able to produce denser gray matter by adulthood.

What you eat affects your brain. One study of one-million students in New York showed people who ate a lunch without preservatives or artificial dyes scored 14% higher on IQ tests.Another study showed people that ate seafood at least once a week had a 30% lower occurrence of dementia.

Size doesn’t matter: Einstein’s brain weighted 1230 grams, and an average male’s brain weights 1360 grams.

Men process information primarily from the left side of the brain. Women tend to use both sides at the same time.

There is a truth behind the saying men are rational and women are emotional. Women are more emotional because they have a larger limbic system which regulates emotion. Yet, men have a larger inferior-parietal lobe that controls mathematical ability.

In rare cases the brain goes haywire and these occur:

  • Exploding Head Syndrome (individual hears a loud band coming from the middle of their head)
  • Phantom Extra Limb Syndrome (you think you have more limbs than you actually have)
  • Sleep Paralysis (The inability to move your limbs upon waking up from sleep because the brain is still in REM mode).

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