18 Interesting Facts About The Brain

The human brain is a true mystery. Even with all the advances that science has made and all the facts about the brain that exist, there are still many more questions than the answers to how our brain works. And about the true extent of its potential.

Although it is impossible to believe, most of the things we do with our brain still do not have clear explanations. Science ignores the details of why and how we dream, how precisely our memories are formed and what mechanisms make the development and change of emotions possible. It is among many other questions that remain unanswered.

“The brain stretches to a new idea or sensation, and it never contracts or shrinks back to its dimensions.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes-

Every day, countless experiments take place around the world. All with the purpose of threading the hidden threads apart that move our brains. Thus, new information is constantly coming into play, which never ceases to amaze us. Below are eighteen fascinating facts about the brain:

Exciting facts about the brain

1. It has been shown that people create greater empathy with people who touch the forearm and / or speak to their right ear during a conversation.
2. Furthermore, when people come up with something, they tend to look up and to the right. If they are really trying to remember something, they look down and to the left.
3. It is also a known fact that people have a better chance of getting a new professional job if they wear glasses for the interview. Glasses are subconsciously interpreted as a sign of specialization or intelligence. 
   
4. The average time it takes to forget a great love is 17 months and 26 days.
5. A study has found that when you suffer from a burn, certain networks in the brain are activated. The interesting aspect of this is that the same network is activated when we suffer from a romantic rejection.
6. Depressed people dream three times as much as people who are not sad.

7. When it comes to physical pain, looking at a picture of your loved one can reduce physical pain by up to 44%. The effect is almost identical to a regular painkiller.

8. Children’s brains that have been subjected to domestic violence have the same activity patterns as soldiers who have fought in a war. The truth is that every thought is literally a physical pathway formed in the brain. The more you have a particular thought, the deeper an imprint this path will make, and the easier it will be for the thought to re-enter your mind. Therefore, it is good to constantly have uplifting and encouraging thoughts.
   
9. Video games can produce an addiction as strong as heroin. This definitely has something to do with the mechanisms that activate willpower because the strength of willpower depends to a large extent on the amount of oxygen and glucose in your brain.
10. When you are exhausted or hungry, it will be harder for you to say no or maintain a specific goal.

11. When talking about exhaustion, it is estimated that the average person loses concentration after 90 minutes of persistent focus on something. Herein lies the importance of taking breaks during an important task.

12. Within the brain, neurons are connected in many different ways. To be more specific, a million in 10th power. If the brain were a hard drive, it would have the ability to store up to 4 terabytes of information. In fact, each of us has about 70,000 thoughts a day, though many of them are repeated.
13. The brain weighs only 1.5 kg on average, but uses 20% of the energy and oxygen used by the body.
14. In a study conducted in the United States, it was proved that people who eat food without artificial color or preservatives managed to achieve 14% better result on intelligence tests. What we eat therefore affects the function of our brains.
15. Despite its great ability, the human brain does not have a good ability to distinguish between fantasy and real experiences. Thus, someone may experience a movie as if it were an event that happened in the real world. You can feel sadness, fear or enthusiasm the same way you would if you were really experiencing that event.

16. People have false memories. In one experiment, some photographs of volunteers were pulled out. They were placed in scenarios or with people where they had never been. Upon seeing the pictures, many of these people remembered and even gave details of the events that took place.

17. While it may seem incredible, people believe more in words that rhyme than in those who do not.
18. Someone may physically feel a blow that another person receives if this greatly affects them emotionally. This is because there are cells in the brain called “mirror neurons” that reproduce the experience as if you were the one who experienced it.

These are some of the interesting facts about the brain that you may not have known.