The Conservative Cat

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May 7, 2007

Notes from Ferdy - It's Time to Kill the Human Brain Myth

It's frequently said that humans only use 10% of their brain. This is part of the premise of the Steven King novel The Dead Zone and the TV series it spawned: Johnny Smith lost the use of part of his brain, so it awakened an unused "dead zone" that has psychic powers.

In fact, we use the whole brain. Trust me on this: if there were ANY POSSIBLE WAY to shrink a human baby's head, every woman in the world would cheerfully commit mass murder to make it happen.

If too many brain cells fire at once, it causes a major seizure. For this reason, a network called GABA insures that at any one time you're only using the part of your brain that you need. Typically, no more than about 10% of the total number of neurons in the brain are firing at any one time, but it would tend to be a different 10% each time.

The neuron network in your brain is called gray matter because it looks gray after it's been sitting around in the lab for a while. The brain also contains so-called white matter, which primarily consists of glial cells. We believe these cells do not participate in the process of drawing conclusions and controlling the body; however, they perform important housekeeping functions. So, the thinking part of your brain is only 10% of the total in terms of cell count, but that's not the same as saying you only need 10% of your brain. To understand the importance of housekeeping functions, go into a typical teenager's bedroom and try to find a particular pair of socks. Trust me, you don't want your brain doing the same thing when it's time to figure out what a red stoplight means.

So rest assured that no mutant race is going to come along with super-powers coming from the unused brain parts, and please don't try smashing your car into a brick wall to awaken a dead zone. Every part of the lumpy mass between your ears is important, and don't let anybody tell you differently.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

# At Mon 10:26 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More Notes from Ferdy | Tags: biology brains humor mass murder pregnancy satire

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Posted by: Tinker at May 10, 2007 5:09 AM