LEARN: How Much Percentage of Brain does Humans Use?
IMPORTANT: The 10 percent of the brain myth is a widely perpetuated urban legend that most or all humans only use 10 percent (or some other small percentage) of their brains. It has been misattributed to many people, including Albert Einstein.
Two-thirds of the population believes a myth that has been propagated for over a century: that we use only 10 percent of our brains. Hardly! Our neuron-dense brains have evolved to use the least amount of energy while carrying the most information possible – a feat that requires the entire brain.
Neurologist Barry Gordon describes the myth as false, adding, "we use virtually every part of the brain, and that (most of) the brain is active almost all the time." Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein sets out seven kinds of evidence refuting the ten percent myth:
- Studies of brain damage: If 10 percent of the brain is normally used, then damage to other areas should not impair performance. Instead, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities. Even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects.
- Brain scans have shown that no matter what one is doing, all brain areas are always active. Some areas are more active at any one time than others, but barring brain damage, there is no part of the brain that is absolutely not functioning. Technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow the activity of the living brain to be monitored. They reveal that even during sleep, all parts of the brain show some level of activity. Only in the case of serious damage does a brain have "silent" areas.
- The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. It can require up to 20 percent of the body's energy—more than any other organ—despite making up only 2 percent of the human body by weight. If 90 percent of it were unnecessary, there would be a large survival advantage to humans with smaller, more efficient brains. If this were true, the process of natural selection would have eliminated the inefficient brains. It is also highly unlikely that a brain with so much redundant matter would have evolved in the first place; given the historical risk of death in childbirth associated with the large brain size (and therefore skull size) of humans,[16] there would be a strong selection pressure against such a large brain size if only 10 percent was actually in use.
- Localization of function: Rather than acting as a single mass, the brain has distinct regions for different kinds of information processing. Decades of research have gone into mapping functions onto areas of the brain, and no function-less areas have been found.
- Microstructural analysis: In the single-unit recording technique, researchers insert a tiny electrode into the brain to monitor the activity of a single cell. If 90 percent of cells were unused, then this technique would have revealed that.
- Synaptic pruning: Brain cells that are not used have a tendency to degenerate. Hence if 90 percent of the brain were inactive, an autopsy of normal adult brains would reveal large-scale degeneration.
In debunking the ten percent myth, Knowing Neurons editor Gabrielle-Ann Torre writes that using one hundred percent of one's brain would not be desirable either. Such unfettered activity would almost certainly trigger an epileptic seizure. Torre writes that, even at rest, a person likely uses as much of his or her brain as reasonably possible through the default mode network, a widespread brain network that is active and synchronized even in the absence of any cognitive task. Thus, "large portions of the brain are never truly dormant, as the 10% myth might otherwise suggest."
