by Kerlain Kate

Created on: July 30, 2008   Last Updated: August 27, 2008

Here's a well known myth, that humans use only 10% of their brains. The other part is unusable or used mostly for mystical powers such as telepathy or similar. What does this percent mean - number of brain cells, area of brain cortex or the other mystery things? Do we really use only a small portion of our brain? My answer is yes and that's why:

The origin of the belief formed in XX century, tenth decade. It was published in some popular publications and advertisements. So suddenly this myth became very popular. Mysterious question - where did the number 10% came from? A lot of scientists still know poorly how human brains codes the information. So if we don't know the maximum brains capacity and amount of information, we can't value how much information brains can use.

On the average male brains weight is 1438g, female - 1263g. But from this weight we can't decide about human intellectual features. We can find a lot of wild animals which brains weight is bigger than human brains. An elephant - 4917g, whale - 6800g. So if we compare brains weight proportion with body weight, we find out that human is much more perfect than the other animals. Some people are smarter than others. Some people are geniuses compared to others. Some people have a brain naturally skilled at math. Some excel at music. Many factors determine these skills, like education, environment, personality, motivation, desire and genetics.

Brains if the most active human organ. It need a lot of oxygen and amount of energy. About 20% blood our heart sends to brains. That's why our brains lost activity after long lack of oxygen. This is called - brains death. The 10 mentioned percent means that people use only a little part of brains neurones. So even if you do mental training, you can't use more than 10% all abilities which your brains can suggest. In addition to clinical evidence, brain imaging methods appear to refute the 10% brain use statement. Much of the brain is active during many different tasks. Therefore, it may appear that some areas of the brain are inactive when, in fact, they were active, but at a lower level compared to other sites.

Every part of brain do its particular function. Brains has approximately 100 milliards nerve-cells, which is interdependent. Every neuron can be accessible maximum through 4 steps, irrespective of place it was started. Every year 0,5-1% nerve-cells dies.

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