Everyone has heard the statement that humans only use 10 percent of their brains and that a large portion of the human brain is unused. It turns out that we do use more than 10 percent of our brains.
Everyone has heard the statement that humans only use 10 percent of their brains and that a large portion of the human brain is unused. It turns out that we do use more than 10 percent of our brains.
The 10% ratio is a myth, but, IMHO, the author did a bad job of investigating this.
In psychology, we studied cases of patients that had half or more of their brains removed. For severe epileptics, they sometimes remove an entire hemisphere. It has been shown that for patients that are young enough, the brain is often able to return to near-full function. Most importantly, functions that traditionally reside in one portion of the brain can be moved to areas of the brain that are still functioning.
However, it is important to note that there is a big difference between stating "you use x% of your brain," and "you can lose x% of your brain and still function."