Brain Teasers

Today’s fact is about a popular misconception that human uses only 10% of our brain. This misconception arose from a misunderstanding of neurological research in the late 1800s or early 1900s when researchers either discovered that only about 10% of the neurons in the brain are firing at any given time. Another possible origin of the misconception is that only 10% of the cells in the brain are neurons; the rest are glial cells that, despite being involved in learning, do not function in the same way that neurons do. If all of a person's neurons began firing at once, that person would not become smarter, but would instead suffer a seizure. In fact, studies have shown that the brains of more intelligent people are less active than the brains of less intelligent people when working on the same problem (which does not in any way mean that epileptics are less intelligent).