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10 Weird and Amazing Facts about the Brain

The human brain is the most marvelous of all the organs that is responsible for consciousness. There is no doubt in saying that the modern computers are quite impressive, but none of them can completely match the amazing and enthralling abilities of the human brain. And if we somehow manage to make such a computer, even then it would be unable to develop the emotional experiences, insights, various forms of imagery and creativity like the human brain. In short, our brain is the most unique and unmatched organ. Weighing nearly 3 pounds and resembling the lukewarm oatmeal, it is so fragile and weird looking that the neurologists and researchers face a lot of difficulty in holding it properly, especially when it has just been removed from the body of the person who has died recently. The first and foremost point which is needed to be made about the brain is its levels of complexity and weirdness in terms of the various functions it performs. After all, it is just a lump of flesh, then how is it able to perform such a plethora of functions. In order to understand the weirdness and the mechanisms of the brain, we need to have some idea about the types of functions it comes to perform. Do you know that there are billions of neurons and trillions of glial cells that are found in your brain? From among the weirdest facts about the brain, 10 weird and amazing facts about the brain are stated below.

10. More Than 100,000 Miles of Blood Vessels

As I have mentioned earlier that there are several billions of neurons and glial cells found at various sites in the brain as well as in the whole body. These neurons possess the ability to generate electrical impulses in between themselves which travel at the speed of more than 100 miles per hour. The electrical activity going on in the brain can generate more than 25 watts of power, as confirmed by various sources. This power is indeed quite enough to light a bulb. Surprisingly, the blood vessels distributed all over the brain, if spread along a straight road may cover a distance of 100,000 or more miles. The human brain indeed has the ability to store trillion terabytes of data for a long time period if encoded in a perfect way.

9. No Pain Receptors (Nociceptors)       

Based on the studies made by thousands of neurologists and psychiatrists, there are no Nociceptors in the brain. As mentioned above, Nociceptors are the receptors that respond to aversive stimuli or any sort of pain. It is because of this weird fact the surgeons are easily able to execute the brain operations while the patient is still awake. This strategy helps in determining that the patient experiences no sort of vision loss or any other abnormality in the organs as the operation progresses. The Nociceptors are distributed all over the human body and play a role in detection of pain. The messages and information about the pain are sent through the spinal cord towards the brain which determines the reaction to be made. In simple words, spinal cord is just like a long wire which provides a communication pathway between the brain and the rest of the body.

8. Stored Brain of Albert Einstein

As you most of you already know that the great scientist and philosopher, Einstein had died in the year 1955. Soon after his death, Dr. Thomas Harvey had removed his brain by performing a brainectomy. The surgery had been done nearly 7 hours after the death of this gifted individual. But what’s more weird is the fact that the Doctor himself had vanished with the brain for many years. Finally, he was traced down by a journalist Steven levy in Kansas, where Dr. Thomas had accepted that he still had the brain stored in mason jars in many pieces and fragments. This is a clear indicator that he had been carrying hundreds of tests on the brain till now, but what in fact did he find?

7. Right and Left Brain

The human brain has been divided into two hemispheres i.e. right and left hemispheres. Although they look the same, but in reality they perform quite different functions. It is said that the left part is involved in rational and analytical thinking, verbal skills and language production, while the right part is involved in creative and visual functions. What’s weirder is that the information from the right eye is sent to the left part, while information from the left eye is sent to the right part of the brain. In addition, our eye captures images in inverted forms, but it is the brain that corrects the image. The part which connects these two hemispheres is known as the “Corpus Callosum”. Any damage to this part would result in the loss of brain co-ordination due to which you would be unable to perform even the simplest of functions. Just imagine that you are looking at a girl you desire heavily, but you are unable to identify who the girl is?

6. Men Have Comparat

ively Bigger Brains

Most of the women would not be so astonished on hearing this fact, but it is a fact that the men have bigger brains. This is a pointer towards the chauvinistic belief that men are smarter than women. But at the same time, it has also been proved by various scientific researches that women have more nerve cells and connectors as compared to men. In terms of information processing, the women process more amounts of data using the left hemisphere which is involved in the emotional content. In simple words, women tend to be more emotional while the men tend to be more logical. There are also minor differences in other brain parts. This raises yet a question that whether the differences between the brain parts is related to the particular gender or not? What do you think?

 

5. Fast Information Exchange during Sleep

At number 5 we have yet another weird fact which states that our brain is more active at the night time in comparison to the day time. In other words, the communication pathways work at very high speeds at the night time. All the information and experiences that are encountered by us while we are awake are processed and decoded efficiently during the night time. Using a device called an EEG, it has been proved that during the REM phase of our sleep, the most number of brain parts are activated. REM phase in simple words, means the phase in which we see dreams marked by a rapid eye movement schedule.

4. Is Inception Real

Most of the dream researchers and neuroscientists have confirmed that we do have the ability to control the outcome of our dreams. Technically, speaking it is called lucid dreaming which traces its roots in the Buddhist religion. What’s more bizarre is that our while our dreams progress, time passes more slowly as shown in the Super Hit Movie “Inception”. Presently, a number of experts and psychologists are offering their services in training you how to conquer your most feared nightmares and dreams. Based on the positivistic results of these methods, it has been proved that all these tactics and techniques employed by these psychologists and so called dream experts do work.

3. No One Really Knows Why We Laugh

It is believed that the true laughter is generated automatically without any voluntary intervention. At the same time, some whitish material is also released out of the nose while we laugh. It is indeed one of the weird of all the facts that are associated with our brains. There is no doubt in saying that there is certainly an unconscious element involved in our laughter. This fact can be better understood by our inability or difficulty to generate fake laughter. In simple words, we laugh at the very first sound of the word “laugh” itself. Normally, we start laughing at the age of 3 to 4 months. But why do we have a ticklish sensation while laughing is still not known.

2. Size Matters or Not

No it does not, as the tests and procedures that were carried out on the brain of Albert Einstein had revealed that his brain was nearly 1.23 kilograms. Normally, the brain of average adult weighs nearly 1.4 kilogram. Then, what was it that contributed to the extra ordinary intelligence of Einstein. It was because of large numbers of glial cells distributed all over his brain. The belief that people with large heads are more intelligent than the ones who have pin pointer heads has been falsified by the latest researches which state that size does not matter. In fact, people who have more than usual brain sizes may experience abnormalities in brain functioning.

 

1.    The Man with the Highest IQ-Kim Ung-Yong

You might be thinking that this man is like any other Korean citizen. But he is not. In fact he is the record holder of having the highest IQ in the world estimated to be nearly 210. What’s more weird is the fact that at the age of four he had become fluent in nearly 4 languages i.e. Korean, German, English and Japanese. At the age of five he was able to understand the concepts of differential calculus and integration. At the age of 8 he was invited to the United States of America where he had completed his university education. At the age of 12 he had already started his research projects at NASA. Now, what do you think about all this?

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