How much of the brain is really used?

Until very recently i was under the impression that humans only use a small percentage (somewhere around 10%) of our brain. This was until i found a website claiming that the 10% Brain usage is simply a myth, and we actually use 100%.
Brain Usage
I am unsure what to believe because for so many years i thought it was only a small percentage and that a higher percentage could explain some strange "powers" that some people have.
What do people think about this? Do we really use 100%?
If not, could a higher percentage of brain use explain some of the things that people experience or can do with the power of their minds.
I am interested in any proof people may believe to have that may prove it one way or the other. Thanks for your time.

[edit on 16-9-2004 by tomh31]

good post tomh31,

i had heard the 10% is all that is used by the brain quite alot and believed it to be true, its good to see another argument saying this isnt the case.

i got told a while back by som1, that when a baby is born, it uses more brain capacity than a adult, due to the surronding, just being born, movement, feelings etc

am not a expert knowing about the brain though,

rynaldo

edit reason: www.abovetopsecret.com...#pid746066 similar discusion there


[edit on 13-9-2004 by rynaldo82]

i think it'd be more acurate to say that we use 100% of what we think we have... dfh out.

Heh, the 10% thing is an unusually persistent urban legend. Its not true nor has it ever been. The brain is all used, most of it is used to some extent all the time. Certain regions are highly active depending on what the person belonging to the brain is doing. For example while you are talking and walking the regions involved with talking and walking are active, yet the regions involved in reading and typing are inactive. Yet while you browse ATS, the regions in charge of walking and talking aren't doing much, yet the parts that are in charge of reading and typing are busy. Yet its all still there and its all used.

An urban legend? I heart einstein sad something if we use all 100%, we can fly.

..and I heard Einstein said that I was Batman, doesn't make it any less of an urban legend.

If you take certain street drugs such as MDMA, it is possible to "shut down" parts of the brain (permanently) to the point where it appears as a honeycomb of cerebral blood flow on PET scans. You see resulting memory and coordination difficulties. However, the surface area of most neurologically normal human brains look like a beehive of activity. If we only used 10% of the surface area of our brains, as others have pointed out, we wouldn't be able to do multiple tasks at once (e.g. eating + watching TV; walking + talking; sleeping + breathing). Activity in the brain is so important that the body is physiologically set up to ensure that it receives oxygen FIRST- to prevent against a shut down.

Also, there are billions of connections between neurons in the brain- it seems silly to think that these are not interconnected:

Your brain is made up of 100 billion nerve cells - about the same as the number of trees in the Amazon rainforest.

www.sciencemuseum.org.uk...

The following link has a map of the brain with a rudimentary listing of the functions of the different areas:

www.tbi.org...

And this link will show you PET scans of the brain engaged in different activities. As you can see, more than 10% of the brain is active during these tasks:

www.er.doe.gov...

These urban legends typically are spread by people who have never seen brain scans.

MK

EDIT: Forgot to mention something:

I heart einstein sad something if we use all 100%, we can fly.

Einstein was a physicist, not a neurologist.

[edit on 14-9-2004 by MKULTRA]

i had always heard the 10% thing, but never anything substantiating it.

I DO know that the deal with einstein (i believe his brain was actually sub-weight) was that his brain had a much higher concentration of so called 'cleaner' cells, cells that went around eliminating dead ones that were just cluttering up the brain. we all have em, but he had an enormous concentration, so his brain was 'spotless.'

that and he was right. ya gotta have a certain special way of thinking to 'invent,' so to speak, relativity as he did, and he had that. obviously.

I believe they we use 100% of our brain because our brain is broken up into different functions. But I also believe our brain can wire itself a ceratin way to utilize some parts better than others. This is why blind people can navagate the a downtown city without getting hit by a car.

Also I believe that even though we use 100% of it that isnt the full capacity of your brain. Every part may be in use but that doesnt mean that each region is using 100% of them 100% of the time, or ever for that matter. I know for a fact that I dont utilize my hearing, my sense of touch, my visual recognition as much as I could. So this immediately states that I am not using those three regions at 100% capacity. So YES, we do use all of it but not all of what it can handle.

Interesting on how much myths become reality when you don't know better . Myself, I have always been told the 10% thing as well. Quick question, I also heard the brain runs off half a watt of electricity. Is this also an urban legend or is this true? If it's true how can we accomplish so much using only that much energy.

well, i just checked a few places, and i like this one the best.
www.merkle.com...
bascially, it says the brain uses 25 watts, but at any given time only about 10 watts.

another site said that the brain, at 2% mass, consumes 20% energy. 2400 Calories translates to roughly 23 watts, which works with the above.
hypertextbook.com...

some space plan for solar panels way back in the mid 90s i remember was supposed to run off half a watt or something, but, while my brain may be in the clouds, it is unfortunately not that high.

Amorymeltzer,

Thanks for hooking up those links for me, i've been rather busy or else i would've done it myself. So I guess thats another myth, well thanks for clearing that up for me!

I didn't realize we share a brain. Are we good at math? That would be nice. Speaking solely for my brain, I just returned home from work and I am proud to say that at the max I used no more than 2.7% today (that's generous). Nevertheless, I billed our clients at a rate which assumes 100% output. Had I known I actually channel 10% of our collective intellect, I would have negotiated a much higher fee from them. Changing the letterhead will be a bitch.

poor gesso, u have my sympathies.

i read a book a while back, the name of which will forever escape me, about neural plasticity, which is a wholly fascinating subject. it did a real great job of just showing how bloody complex the human brain is, and just what it does. i remember thinking then that 10% had to be way too small to allow this one guy to echolocate. its amazing what we really can do when we dont flip burgers.

(on a side note, mcdonalds i think is looking into automating their stores. america will be jobless - moreso!)