Fascinating Facts About Your Brain...

Have you ever wondered about your brain?

Discover some of the most fascinating facts about your amazing brain....

...the weight of an average human brain is about 1300-1400g - @ 3lbs i.e., almost one bag of sugar. It's smaller than an elephant's brain (6000g) but bigger than a monkey's brain (95g)! A dog's brain weighs about 72g and a cat's brain weighs abut 30g. Your skin weighs twice as much as your brain!

..your brain uses approximately 20% of the total oxygen pumping around your body! ...and about 750ml of blood pumps through your brain every minute!

Approaching 100 billion (1011 or 100 000 000 000) interconnected electro-chemical units (cells) called NEURONS

• Neurons are information-processing devices somewhat analogous to LOGIC GATES in computers

• But they are more complex than logic gates. They have many more connections, and their connections change over time

• Each neuron has around 3000 synaptic connections to other neurons

• In principle the human brain has ~1010 to the power 14 or 10100 000 000 000 000 possible configurations!

• Compare that with the number of elementary particles in the universe: probably around 1087 or 1088

• There are also about 10 to 50 times as many GLIAL CELLS as neurons. These are probably indirectly involved in information processing.

Sources
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html [photo]
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~sjp7/PY1004/ohp7.pdf [facts]
http://www.thethinkingbusiness.co.uk/brainfacts.htm [facts]

Editorial Comment: With each of us possessing so much potential we all have the ability to create new thought pathways and begin to understand each other's points of view. If we all take the time we can make our moments on earth meaningful by reaching out to one another in compassion and empathy. LJG