Cool Brain Science Facts by the Amen Clinics
- The brain never stops activity throughout your entire life. While you rest at night, your brain is continually active, especially when you dream.
- Despite what you may hear, Size Always Matters – when it comes to your brain. The adult brain weighs in between 1,300 and 1,400 grams, while the average cat brain weighs only 30 grams. Furthermore, the stegosaurus brain was the size of a mere walnut.
- On average, men say only 2,000 words per day while women speak up to 7,000 words per day.
- The brain is the most important and complex organ in your body, yet it only weighs 3 pounds, which is typically about 2 percent of your total body weight.
- Information travels through your brain at 268 miles per hour. If you’re intoxicated, brain activity slows down and may cause you to make poor decisions, such as attempting to drive 268 miles per hour on the freeway.
- While you may never touch brain tissue, your brain is the consistency of many common foods you feel and consume every day, such as tofu, soft butter, and the common ground between jello and egg whites.
- It turns out laughter really is the best medicine. Laughing lowers your stress hormone levels while strengthening your immune system. On average, adults only laugh 15 to 100 a day while six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day.
- Your brain houses over 100 billion nerve cells, trillions of supportive cells and more internal connections than there are stars in the universe.
- Nature and nurture always work together. An estimated three-quarters of the baby’s brain develops outside the room in direct response to social interaction and physical environment.
- College athletes are very prone to head injuries. During college, 70% of football players and 62% of soccer players suffer at least one concussion each year.
- The brain’s engine is fueled by glucose and oxygen. Unlike other cells in the body, glucose is the only fuel your brain knows how to use, and obstruction of glucose delivery to brain cells is life threatening.
- Although many people are considered adults at age 18, their brains are still undeveloped. In fact, during late adolescence and into the mid 20s, the front third of the brain – called the executive brain – continues to develop.
- It’s no wonder pregnant women are hungry; at times in the womb, the baby’s brain makes 250,000 new nerve cells per minute.
- The brain uses 20% of the calories we consume and 20% of the oxygen we breathe.
- If you don’t take care of your brain, you are at risk to lose up to 85,000 brain cells a day, causing premature aging. If you take great care of your brain, you can dramatically slow down the aging process and live a long healthy life.
