Humans only use 10% of their brain, so they say.
Photo from David Goehring’s flickr
The 10% brain usage is definitely a myth for the scientific community. Every region of the brain is performing, whether it is from the back’s occipital lobe that controls our vision or the frontal lobe that’s responsible for our cognitive functioning. Every region of the brain is almost working constantly to accommodate our activities; even those that we don’t have to think of doing, like breathing, are under the brain’s supervision.
100% of our brain is working hard; that’s why it demands so much energy to operate. Our brain “represents three percent of the body’s weight and uses 20 percent of the body’s energy”, said Johns Hopkins’ neurologist Barry Gordon.
Where the myth came from?
It may have started from William James’ words in The Energies of Men (1908), “we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources”. Later on, Karl Lashley studied the brains of rats where he removed portions of cerebral cortex and the rats can perform specific tasks like nothing happened. So people would be thinking, we won’t need most of it.
The more interesting claim is human’s potential psychic abilities. It is indulging to believe that there’s even more we could do, perhaps have a super memory or heroic capabilities.
The more appropriate claim is we only know 10% of our brain. That 10% are neurons, and the rest of the brain is supporting glial cells. There is still a broad spread of exploration to know what glial cells are for.
But the science community is not backing off to know more. In a way, you could buy Einstein’s brain via an iPad app. $9.99 gives anyone access to images of the genius’ brain cut into 350 slides, hoping to spark another knowledge to his brain apart from knowing that his parietal lobe (processing of mathematics, language, and spatial understanding) is wider than normal.
Is this too much to take from the man who already contributed so much to our comprehension? The man who wished for his body to be cremated?
As long as the person is dead, it seems, his voice will not matter. Jacopo Annese of the University of California “predicts that there will be another Einstein, and when that individual dies, we’ll be prepared (we’re hanging on for that 3D-mapped interactive specimen)” (Wired UK).
Do you believe that nothing should hamper the search for knowledge?
Sources:Do People Only Use 10 Percent Of Their Brains?; Scientific American
Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brains?; Washington.edu
Einstein’s Brain Goes Digital With iPad App; Wired UK
Moment Matters 
Ewwwww I don’t want my brain sliced and diced EVER! But hey, I’ll be dead so your right I get no say in the matter.
I think the person’s right to choose should extend beyond death. Today things like a living will and signing specific donor cards could help ensure that happens, at least I hope so.
I am not a religious person so after death they can do what they want with my body. A lot of what has been discovered over the years has sometimes become a taboo and society has rebelled against it, mainly driven by the church. In times gone by many discoveries and theories had to be kept secret for fear of reprisals. I think society is open enough now to accept most way out theories, as they have a broader base of understanding.
Interesting facts and unfortunately an “average” brainer like me cannot go beyond facts stated some decades back. I have grown up hearing that Einstein have used only 5% of his brain and we use 2% and only if every one could use to the optimum level any individual can do wonders. But there is no information on “How”..
Based on the recent political campaigns, coverage and voting, I think 10% is being generous.
It isn’t right that they coopted his brain against his wishes when he was alive. While we may learn something from those slices, I don’t think it would be much. It would have been more effective to hook him up to electrodes and watch his brain at work while it was actually being used. What they have now is only useful in making comparisions of the actual brain matter between people. Love those machines that can take that kind of picture without slicing and dicing the brain itself.
Hey, I come across people on a daily basis; that seem to be using far less than 10%? ;-]
This is a very nice post, right up to your statement that it would possibly be better to consider that we may only ‘know’ 10% of our brains. Then you seem to slice off (pun intended) onto a tangent. You started with the topic of how much of our brain is in use and then finish on Einsteins own grey and white matter. Does it matter?
No, I do not believe that ‘nothing’ should stand in the way of our search for knowledge. It is surely better to slow the pace than burn up the planet in pursuit?
In my mind there is hardly a doubt that until recently we hardly knew our self. As far as the brain goes, it coincidentally turned out to be 10%. Given the potencial we’ve added since finding the rest, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up aware!