We wouldn’t be here without our brains.
Language. Problem-solving. Social interaction.
Most of the changes in the human brain over the millions of years of evolution were found in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for higher-level functions such as processing sensory information, controlling voluntary movement, remembering events and information, and (again) solving problems.
At birth, a baby has around 100 billion brain cells, but few connections between them. Between birth and age two, some 700 new connections are formed per second. It probably seems like an obvious point, but a child’s brain development is influence by their relationships with adults—including parents, caregivers, teachers, others.
More fun facts about the brain, thanks to HealthBeat.
· Sixty percent of the human brain is made of fat (it’s the fattiest organ in the human body.)
· The brain isn’t fully formed until age 25. The frontal lobes, which control planning and reasons, are the last to strengthen.
· Research suggests the human brain consists of 86 billion neurons. There could be 1 quadrillion connections (that’s 1,000 trillion).
· A piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and 1 billion synapses.
· Brain information travels up to 350 miles per hour. Bullet train, take that!
· The spinal cord provides the main source of communication between the body and the brain.
· Your brain is always active, even when you’re sleeping.
· The human brain runs on about 20 watts of power (enough to turn on a lightbulb).
· Sleep is key to maintaining the pathways in your brain.
Okay, the human brain is substantial. It weighs about three pounds, or about as much as a half-gallon of milk. If you were a scientist, it would seem like an object that was large enough to study.
But what about a fly’s brain?
Scientists, it turns out, have been working on mapping a fruit fly’s brain, smaller than a poppy seed according to the New York Times, since 2013. Seriously, that’s some dedication.
What did they find? Well, 140,000 neurons joined by more than 490 feet of wiring. (You may want to stop and read that sentence again.)
The wiring diagram the scientists developed, said The Times, “will be a boon to researchers” who have been studying the fruit fly’s nervous system for “generations.”
The work was done by hardening the fruit fly’s brain in a chemical bath and then shaving an “exquisitely thin” layer off the top of the block. Microscopes, computers, customized software—more than 7,000 sections in all and an accompanying 21 million photos. Researchers classified the cells of the fruit fly’s brain into 8,453 distinct types of cells. And that’s compared to only 3,300 cell types in the human brain.
We highly recommend reading the full New York Times article. The level of detail they were able to discern is pretty mind-blowing (almost literally).
Again, we wouldn’t be here without our brains. They’re working all the time. Don’t you think they should get a little bit of thanks, maybe, once or twice a day?
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*Photo by Sahil Muhammed on Unsplash
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