2/3 of people in the United States
know that we only use 10% of our brain.
And by "know," I mean are crazy, horribly, mistaken.
Anthony here for D News, and according to a brain health
survey from the Michael J. Fox Foundation, 65% of Americans
think that we only use 10% of our brains on a daily basis.
It's definitely something I've heard in my life over,
over and over again.
Wait a minute.
Were those people insulting me?
Here's the deal.
That is false.
It is crazy false.
There's not a part of your brain that you do not use.
There is no dormant part with psychic abilities
or the potential to instantly memorize
anything you see hidden behind some cranial roadblock
up there.
The human brain is an incredibly complex organ.
And all its little bits are highly specialized,
some of them in ways that we are just beginning to understand.
The myth probably started through a misquote
of the findings of a study guide in the 1890s
by William James and Boris Sidis,
where they attempted to raise a child prodigy in a way that
would actually accelerate his intelligence.
After raising the kid to an IQ of 250,
James said people only meet a fraction
of their full mental potential.
He just meant we don't challenge ourselves enough mentally.
It's also possible that the myth came
from early neurological research in the 19th or 20th century.
As scientists started digging around in all those brains,
it seemed like there were bits that didn't change anything
if they were damaged or removed.
And now, we know that some areas just
have very subtle and specialized functions,
stuff you might not be able to tell is missing right away.
I mean, there's a part of our brain
that is just dedicated to making electrical sockets look
like faces.
We also know that the brain can rearrange and reassign
functions to a new part of itself
if an old one is damaged.
But it's easy to see how early data could
have made it seem otherwise.
We've got way better brain data now, thanks to stuff
like fMRIs and PET scans that can
show what the whole brain is up to at any time
down to these tiny electrodes that
can monitor the activity of a single cell.
And they all show the same thing.
Your whole brain is always worrying and humming
with activity.
Certain sections work harder than others at certain times.
But except for people with actual localized brain damage,
nothing is completely dark.
There are some other things that point
to the myth being wrong too.
I mean, our brain uses 20% of our body's total energy.
Why would it need so much if it was mostly dormant?
Also, unused brain cells actually degenerate.
And autopsies of human brains don't ever
show large-scale degeneration that
wasn't caused by an actual disease.
So no, you are not a pill or a technique
away from being a psychically-powered warrior.
But the real unmangled quote from William James
is still true.
Most of us don't meet our mental potential.
So now that you know that you can access all 100 billion
of those neurons of yours at any given time, go out and do it.
I'm going to learn French this afternoon.
I wonder which part of the brain is
responsible for unhealthy levels of optimism.
Hey, what do you want to know about the human brain?
Let us know down below.
And we'll answer some of those questions in future videos.
And subscribe for more D News.