Humans only use 20-30% of their brain

[Darken-Sol]

how about the ratio of synapses firing to not firing at any given time? if i were blind would i still use the vision portion? deaf? asleep?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

how about the ratio of synapses firing to not firing at any given time? if i were blind would i still use the vision portion? deaf? asleep?

The 10% myth came about decades and decades ago. It was wrong then and it's wrong now, I don't get why people are so desperate to find anything related to 10% in the brain and ascribe the myth to that.

There are different types of relationships between neurons and how they fire. Heres some examples.

Neuron A and B are synapsed. A fires causing B to fire
Neuron C and D are synapsed. C fires preventing D from firing
Neuron E and F are synapsed. E does not fire causing F to fire

So whether or not n% of synapses are firing is unrelated to whether or not they are in "use"

 

[Jim1138]

If one removes 10% of one's brain, you don't just take 10% longer to solve a problem. You would be totally non-responsive and die if that 10% is your brain stem. You might go blind, deaf, mute, be partially or fully paralysed, loose interest in sex, be unable to remember, etc. etc. There may also be no apparent effect; the brain is somewhat redundant. The brain is not simply a general purpose processing unit like a computer. Much of the brain is specialized.

The effects of brain injury are fascinating, prompting many scientists to study people who have minor brain injury (minor being defined as still alive and cooperating). URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage"]Phineas Gage[/URL] had a brain injury that may have started much of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cognitive_science" . (Wiki-links)

 

[Ryan_m_b]

If one removes 10% of one's brain, you don't just take 10% longer to solve a problem. You would be totally non-responsive and die if that 10% is your brain stem. You might go blind, deaf, mute, be partially or fully paralysed, loose interest in sex, be unable to remember, etc. etc. There may also be no apparent effect; the brain is somewhat redundant. The brain is not simply a general purpose processing unit like a computer. Much of the brain is specialized.

The effects of brain injury are fascinating, prompting many scientists to study people who have minor brain injury (minor being defined as still alive and cooperating). URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage"]Phineas Gage[/URL] had a brain injury that may have started much of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cognitive_science" . (Wiki-links)

It's fascinating that there are cases of small damages leading to massive consequences yet cases like this show huge damage with little difference

 

[Jim1138]

It's fascinating that there are cases of small damages leading to massive consequences yet cases like this show huge damage with little difference

I wonder how many neuroscience/psychiatric/cognitive studies students and professors want him in their studies?

 

[Ophiolite]

I have a hypothesis and a proposal to test it.

The hypothesis: People who claim we use only 10% of our brains do, indeed, only use 10% of their brains.

The test: Remove 90% of the brains of those people who make the claim and see if it has any effect on them.

The Prediction:We will no longer have to listen to silly claim.

 

[JaredJames]

Again, it depends how you define 'use'. Can keep saying this all day, but my previous post outlines what I mean.

 

[Ken Natton]

Hmmm. I’m going to do it again. I am going to cite a popular science television program that I watched only last night, and that was part of a BBC series about the human body. Last night’s episode was mainly about the brain, and it included an assertion that astonished me, has relevance to this discussion and on which I would be very interested in comment from our more knowledgeable contributors. Now the precise way that the presenter put it was a little convoluted and I can’t quote what he said word for word. So this is paraphrasing. But if I understood what was said correctly, then it constituted another reinforcement of the point about the importance of bipedalism to the development of our large brain. It was asserted that about half of our brain is used for one purpose and one purpose only – balance. Mention was made of the gyroscopic mechanism in our ear that provides the raw data for our sense of balance, and it also explained that control of balance is about the control of a very large number of muscles. In any case, the way it was phrased was something along the lines of that as many brain cells are used in the control of balance as are used in all other brain functions combined. Something like that. Does anyone want to support or refute that assertion, I wonder? If it is true it makes a complete mockery of the suggestion that we use only 10% of our brain. Not that I ever believed that nonsense, but nonetheless worth mentioning, I thought.

 

[Proton Soup]

plenty of bipedal birds out there.

i believe I've also seen this sort of argument made about cetaceans, but there also you might want to compare their echolocation abilities to bats.

 

[apeiron]

In any case, the way it was phrased was something along the lines of that as many brain cells are used in the control of balance as are used in all other brain functions combined.

You may have misheard as two-legged walking is not especially demanding in terms of motor control. And it definitely does not occupy half the brain.

The program may have been talking about the cerebellum - which does have a surprisingly large neuron count (the cerebellum is a tenth of the brain's volume but does have half its neurons - though in simple, repetitive, arrangement). And the cerebellum was traditionally considered as a motor coordination centre (we now know it plays just as big a role in cognitive learning and integration).

Ahh, scratch that. Its just come back to me. Perhaps this was John Skoyles who was talking? He used to have some crazily interesting theories on human evolution.

http://www.human-existence.com/publications/Medical Hypotheses 06 Skoyles dysequilibrium syndome.pdf

 

[Ken Natton]

Okay, I might not have explained it very well but I think I have been misunderstood. It was me that brought bipedalism into it, so just put that aside for a moment, I’ll come back to it. The programme was demonstrating the complexity of our balance control, not necessarily just the motor function involved in walking. Certainly it was making the point that when we walk, we are essentially over-balancing and reacting to that over-balancing by moving the other leg forward. But whether walking or doing anything else, when we feel ourselves over-balancing we have control of a large range of muscles to react to that and keep us upright. The notion that our sense of balance is something quite exceptional and complex was not new to me, but the idea that it took such a proportion of our brain was. And again, I must bow to those with better knowledge if they refute what I am saying, but I can only say that the presenter, Michael Mosley, who is a medic rather than a biologist, is not someone generally given to ill-founded assertions. Again, perhaps I misheard or misunderstood the point that was being made. Here’s a link to some details about the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0110f51

On the matter of bipedalism, it is a good point that birds are bipedal, I hadn’t thought about that, but I suppose that it is a matter of bird geometry, as it were, that means that their bipedalism is not so demanding on their ability to balance as our geometry is on ours. The reason I mentioned bipedalism was because I have previously encountered, and previously mentioned here, how so many traits that separate humans from other species all co-evolved because they are all co-dependant. It seemed to make sense to me that if our ability to balance is so demanding of our brain’s resources, then it also makes sense to think that it might have been a major driving force in the growth of our brain. But perhaps that was just speculative.

 

[Jim1138]

The more I think, the more I walk into things. Maybe brains don't help with bipedalism? ;)

 

[JaredJames]

The more I think, the more I walk into things. Maybe brains don't help with bipedalism? ;)

What's collision avoidance got to do with walking on two feet? Or do four legged animals never walk into anything and I'm just unaware of this fact...

 

[Jim1138]

I seem to remember (but don't rely on this) that walking and running is mostly performed by ganglia. The story goes that if you chop a chickens head off, it can walk and run just fine (for awhile). I would imagine that collision avoidance is impaired a bit.

Collision avoidance appears to be performed primarily by the more primitive brain centers. People who are blind due to brain damage in the occipital lobe (higher vision brain centers) and are unaware of any visual stimuli (i.e. only perceive 'blackness') can navigate down a path avoiding obstacles. They are even unaware that there were obstacles in their path or that they avoided them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight"

 

[JaredJames]

Like I said, what does bipedalism have to do with collision avoidance?

 

[atyy]

I always assumed that in this context "used" means "neurons firing", so the claim is that only 10% of your neurons are firing at a given time. That sounds reasonable since not firing is very important too. A seizure is what happens when your neurons fire too much.

That's the best interpretation I've heard so far.

It's one of those one always hears, and can't even make sense of since it's not even clear what the thing means! Now, I would like to know, what is "water on the brain"?

 

[Jim1138]

Like I said, what does bipedalism have to do with collision avoidance?

Why so serious about a silly statement followed by a winky?

 

[Jim1138]

...what is "water on the brain"?

Hydrocephalus

this

Classified as hydrocephalus in the article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephalus

 

[JaredJames]

Why so serious about a silly statement followed by a winky?

On the one hand I was curious if there was any truth to it and on the other it was a silly statement which someone reading through might believe (how things like the '10% of brain' get started).

That aside, you also tried to provide an explanation for it.