Our brain potential

History of our brain    

Did you know that for century’s people have believed, that we carry a heavy burden of approximately 3.5 kg in our head; this grey mass was looked upon as an unorganized piece of lump. Only when the microscope was invented, they discovered that the outer layer of our brain was many times more complex than that we thought it was.
They discovered that there are thousands of small streams 'running' over by the brains; these streams were 'feeding' the brain. 

Slowly but surely they discovered that the brains were full of small dots as well. Much more dots than what was previously thought. And from these little dots they started to observe ramifications. It became clear that our brains could be seen like we observe our universe. 

Only when the electric microscope was discovered, the researchers got an even deeper understanding; as it turned out to be that our brain exists out of millions of neurons.
And every body of each neuron turned out to be much more complex than previously thought.
Each neuron showed a centre, nucleus, and countless volumes have ramifications.
They compared it with the crown of a tree, which has long ramifications on all sides. 

The number of brain cells  

The great discoveries were yet to be made. 

Only in the second half of the 20th century they discovered that the number of brain cells not some millions of brain cells, but more likely 1 million * one million brain cells. Consider this: We are not yet talking about the many different connection possibilities among these brain cells.
In order to contain this number I use an example in which I will refer to both the left and right brain sides.
At the beginning of the 21st century approximately 6 billion people live on the planet earth.
Earlier I mentioned that an average brain consists out of about 1,000,000,000,000 brain cells.
The earth has a population of 6.000.000.00 people.
This means that one brain has 166 more individual brain cells than we have individuals on the whole planet "Earth". 

With this knowledge in mind, think about this.
A bee has a brain consisting out of a brain with approximately 10.000 brain cells. Besides flying this bee can do a lot more than that! 

What a bee does with only 10.000 brain cells 
 
Navigated flying
Find new colonies
Learning
Remember
Differentiate between each other
Fighting
Hearing
Seeing
Smelling
Feeling
Tasting     

Monitor and regulate the temperature in the hive
Build a nest
Counting
Taking care of each other
Reproduce
Building a hive and community
Communicate with buzzing
Collecting nectar
dancing 

Here is the link for the mind map I made about  what a bee with 10.000 brain cells can do  

In order to be able to download this mind map, you need acrobat reader   

All this,...with only 10.000 brain cells? 
  

A bee brain contains only 0, 000001% of our brain capacity!
Look at what this bee is capable of! 

This difference really made me think as this difference is huge!
I and many researchers agree with me: in every individual lives a genius....we only need to find a way to let it out!  

Misunderstandings  

Do you know what happens to your brain and its brain cells when you start to age?
Almost everybody will tell you that many brain cells die!
The way these people formulate this statement would almost convince me sometimes. 

As a matter of fact I often ask these people the following question: How many brain cells die on an average day?
In general I hear numbers between thousands and millions.
After this question I prepared my next question already: How many will die due to the consumption of alcohol?
Again I hear the numbers of thousands and millions. 

This is what is commonly thought. This is what most of us believe and actually are convinced of.
When this is what you believe, get prepared to get depressed. Because when this is true, every morning you wake up, you will know that you degenerated even more. This thought will continue until you don't even realize this anymore.
What a nice thought! 

At this very moment we are talking about a deep-rooted melancholy look at our everyday reality that most people on earth are convinced of; every day we are less capable.
With this in mind it would not make any sense to re-invest in your brains, as it is diminishing at a high speed.
 
 
New insights  

But.....suppose they are right (which they aren't by the way)......
what will happen to our brain volume? 

Because in reality we can forget about this problem: getting older.
In a year we have 365 days, right? Suppose we lose 1.000.000 (one million) brain cells per day.
That would mean that we lose 36.500.000.000 brain cells in 100 years.
We possess about 1.000.000.000.000 brain cells.
In this calculation it would mean that we will lose (36.500.000.000/1.000.000.000.000)= 3, 65%.  

This implies that after 100 years we still have 97,35% of our brain potential left.
I am convinced that we can neglect this, right?
At the same time we now also realize that one glass of wine during our meals don't have a negative effect on our brain cells. 

This means, there is still hope.
 
I have more interesting stuff to tell: Brain side specialties