The human brain is the most complex thing in the universe. The neurons of the nervous system, which formed this organ, capable of carrying out mental activity. The brain is hidden in darkness, protected by the skull, but by interpreting electrical signals from the senses, it is able to construct a detailed picture of the surrounding world.
It is not known how accurate this representation is and how close one person's version of reality and thought is to another's version and thoughts. However, this ability is impressive.
There are many strange and unusual things going on in our heads. Here are ten reasons why your brain is crazier than you think.
1. The brain is too complex for a supercomputer
The Japanese K computer, created by Fujitsu, is one of the fastest and most powerful supercomputers in the world. Its 88,000 processors are capable of 10.51 quadrillion calculations per second, and it uses about the same amount of electricity as a mid-sized city.
Since its inception in 2011, its capabilities have been used for medical research, disaster prevention and climate change modeling.
In 2014, it was used to make the most accurate attempt to mimic the activity of the human brain ever made. Nevertheless, the computer was able to simulate only 1% of the entire neural network, it turned out to be more impracticable even for such a powerful machine. The result was already difficult to achieve and took K computer 40 minutes.
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2. Memory capacity
In 2007, Canadian Dave Farrow broke the world record by memorizing a sequence of 3,068 playing cards. This is definitely an outstanding achievement. He can be admired, especially for the average person who sometimes does not remember where he left the keys or cell phone. Nevertheless, memorizing such a colossal array of information is only a tiny capability of the human brain.
Until recently, it was believed that human memory is approximately 1.1 terabytes, but recent studies have established that its true volume is several orders of magnitude larger.
Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Research (USA) believe that the average human brain can store more than a petabyte of data. This is the equivalent of 20 million filing cabinets, each with four drawers filled to the brim with scribbled paper. If you find it hard to imagine such a comparison, try another one - about 2% of the total number of written words in each language in the entire history of mankind.
Most of the storage is used for basic things. For example, to ensure that you wake up in the morning without forgetting how to read a book or drive a car. The brain also saves you the inconvenience of digging through the memories of where you have been in your entire life to determine your address of residence. Therefore, only a portion of the memory remains available for the rest.
3. Half a brain would be enough
The human brain is not the largest in the world. It is about six times inferior to the sperm whale. However, comparing brain size to body weight is a more accurate measure of intelligence. With this approach to measurement, the small arboreal shrew takes the leading position, while humans take the second place.
Surprisingly, it is possible to remove an entire hemisphere of the human brain without negatively affecting intelligence and memory. This procedure is called hemispherectomy in neurosurgery. It is used in the rarest of cases when other treatment regimens are impossible. For an adult, such an operation is a disaster, but the child's young brain is able to adapt to deprivation and shift the functions of one hemisphere to another.
4. You may lack the will
It seems incontestable that man has freedom of choice. We make thousands of decisions every day, and each time we do it ourselves. Despite this belief, there is good reason to believe that human will is nothing more than an illusion generated by the brain.
Although it used to be thought that mind and matter were two separate entities, we can now say with great certainty that mind is not so independent. The brain is material and obeys the law of conditioning: every effect must have a cause.
This implies an almost complete lack of free choice.
5. Plasticity of the brain
About 90 billion neurons in the brain are linked by trillions of connections. Learning a new skill forms new connections, while remembering reinforces existing ones. Our brains are constantly changing, adapting and forming new connections.
The hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for navigating space, is significantly larger in London taxi drivers than in other professions. Differences in brain structure have also been found between musicians and non-musicians.
6. You can be a secret genius
For 31 years, Jason Padgett's life was unremarkable. He worked as a mattress salesman and devoted all his free time to drinking and women.
That all changed in 2002 when a man was brutally beaten outside a nightclub. Padgett managed to limp to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a severe concussion.
Padgett's life will never be the same again. The violent assault somehow unleashed a previously unused ability in his brain. Previously, he showed no particular interest or inclination for the exact sciences, and the trauma turned him into a mathematical genius. All of a sudden, Jason sees the world as pixelated, and wherever he looks, he presents complex mathematical shapes known as fractals.
While Padgett's experience is extremely unusual, it is not unique. There are other known cases when people, after suffering a traumatic brain injury, discovered in themselves extraordinary abilities. Some scientists believe that almost any human brain can be reprogrammed to release inner genius.
7. You don't remember the past correctly
Our memories are fundamental. Without them, we would be both literally and figuratively lost in the world. Given the overwhelming importance of memories, it's amazing how unreliable they are and how little we know about how they are formed.
According to research conducted by neuroscientists such as Daniela Schiller of Mount Sinai Hospital School of Medicine (USA), when we recall an event, our memory of it is unstable. Our view changes and rewrites many times. Thanks to this feature, a person can learn to modify or block memories that bring negative emotions.
8. When you go on a diet, your brain eats itself
It has long been studied that obesity, smoking, alcohol and drugs destroy brain cells and even shrink brain cells. However, recent research has shown that even diet can cause the brain to eat itself up.
The brain consumes about 20% of the body's energy, and when it is in a calorie deficit, it does not like it at all: neurons begin to devour each other. The body receives a message that it urgently needs to eat something. This is why losing weight is so difficult for a person.
9. Your brain has no pain receptors
When our body is physically injured, pain receptors send signals up the spine to the thalamus, which serves as the brain's sorting center for sensory signals. The message is then passed on to areas of the brain responsible for physical sensation, thinking, and emotion. This leads to a deeply unpleasant sensation of pain.
If the brain itself is damaged, this transfer of information does not occur. The organ does not have its own pain receptors.
10. Synesthesia can be acquired
Synesthesia is a state of mixing two or more of a person's senses. That is, irritation in one sensory or cognitive system automatically leads to a response in another. One of the most common types of synesthesia is grapheme-color, in which numbers and letters are perceived to be colored.
This phenomenon is associated with creative people. Famed physicist Richard Feynman saw the equations in colors, and this may have helped him win the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965.
About 1 in 300 people are born with synesthesia, but studies have shown that this condition can be acquired as a result of regular brain training. An experiment was conducted at the University of Sussex (UK): the subjects read books in which words were printed in a specific color.
After several weeks of research, most of the group reported seeing these colors even when reading standard black text. However, the effect did not last long: within a few weeks, the acquired synesthesia disappeared.
Anastasia Simonova