hey everyone and welcome to top think today we're going to learn about 12 shocking facts
about the human brain now let's begin number one intellectual Peaks your brain stops growing when
you're 25 but that doesn't mean you've reached your intellectual peak cognitive change is a
lifelong process some skills like memory and processing speed max out in your mid-20s you'll
excel at facial recognition and problem-solving in your 30s and then gain emotional control and
empathy in your 40s and 50s a select few skills like vocabulary take even longer peaking in your
60s and 70s now your brain may have matured but your mind has plenty of room to grow that's why
you should never stop learning no matter how old you get number two audible sites have you ever
heard that missing one of your senses amplifies the others going blind or losing your hearing
won't make you a superhero but it can give you a few different neurological advantages a 2011 study
found that people who are born blind sometimes develop a new way to process the world around
them they essentially begin seeing through their ears hmm the human brain excels at adapting to
difficult situations this kind of reorganization is called neuroplasticity so when someone can't
see the brain automatically searches for an innovative solution it will often rewire itself
to process auditory information over visual information it isn't quite the same as normal
vision but this workaround can yield some pretty amazing results number 3 hogging blood the average
person's brain weighs about 3 pounds now for someone who weighs 150 pounds total that's only
2% of their body weights that's barely anything when you think about how important the brain is to
your body but without it you couldn't do anything you think you couldn't speak no you couldn't even
move so how does such a small organ manage so many executive functions the real difference
between the brain and the rest of the body isn't in its size it's the amount of oxygen and blood
that your brain needs to work like it's supposed to so even though it's only 2% of your weights
it requires about 20 % of your body's supply of oxygen that's more than all of your other skeletal
muscles combined so if you've ever wondered how blood is distributed inside your body now
you know the brain is taking a significant chunk yeah it's a blood hog number four miles of blood
vessels since it needs so much blood an intricate network of vessels is working around the clock to
bring oxygen to every part of the brain because if one section isn't getting enough blood you start
losing basic functions some people experience blindness or fatigue others lose all feeling
in one or more parts of their body almost like you're paralyzed so how many blood vessels does
it take to keep your brain up and running well to know for sure you'd have to untangle a web
of veins arteries and capillaries you'd see that the average person has hundreds of miles of blood
vessels inside their head yeah I know that doesn't seem possible does it your blood vessels are just
so thin and tightly woven together that they fit inside a much smaller space now researchers are
still working on counting the number of blood vessels in your brain we do however know that
the entire body measures up to 100,000 miles what that's like driving around the widest part of the
earth four times and those are the blood vessels of just one average-sized person imagine how much
distance the entire human race could cover number five brain starvation so what happens when your
brain doesn't get any oxygen at all how long can it last before something goes wrong the answer is
not very long after five to six minutes without oxygen you're risking significant brain damage
that's because your brain can't actually store any oxygen on its own it relies on the body to send
a constant supply all day every day and if that stops happening your brain only has a few minutes
left to live number six neural speed way every action in the brain starts with an electrical
signal some are sluggish and slow others race across the brain clocking in at over 230 miles per
hour Wow the speed of a signal depends primarily on what kind of signal it is when you touch a hot
surface for example that sensation speeds through your body it starts at the sensory receptors on
your hand passes through your spinal cord and then enters your cerebral cortex there you perceive and
process how hot the surface is which sends a new electrical signal rushing through your brain and
your body so if you've ever wondered why it takes a second to realize how hot something is you found
your answer number seven thousands of thoughts you spend the majority of the day thinking you
wonder if anyone has noticed the stain on your shirt you think about whether or not you locked
your car so many random thoughts pop into your head all day long but has anyone ever tried to
count them researchers go back and forth on the exact number but most agree the average person has
about 50,000 thoughts every single day that's at least 2,100 thoughts per hour the most are small
and repetitive but it just goes to show your brain never stops working number eight shrinking brains
who do you think has a larger brain modern humans or our early ancestors this discovery surprised
researchers around the world it turns out our ten thousand year old ancestors had larger brains than
we do about ten percent larger to be exact but it's not because they were necessarily smarter
than us several neuroscientists have explained this change in brain size our brains are getting
smaller because our bodies are too so that means we have a smaller nervous system so we can afford
to carry a lighter more efficient brain than our ancestors there are plenty of times when smaller
brains outperform larger ones instant computations are a great example we may not have as much room
to store information but our processing speed is through the roof when you think about it our
brains have gotten smaller to adapt to our modern lives if we really needed bigger brains well we'd
still have them number nine the fattiest organ your brain is actually the fattiest organ in
your entire body right fat head think about the construction of the human brain are you
picturing the hundreds of millions of neurons the complicated network of blood vessels the dozens
of glands secreting all kinds of hormones but did you know that 60% of your brain is just plain old
fat despite being one of the largest organs in the body the brain doesn't have any muscle it controls
muscles and a whole lot of them but it's made of fatty tissue here's the problem your body makes a
lot of different things but fat isn't one of them so all the fat your brain uses for performance
and repair has to come from the food you eat this is why so many dietitians push people to consume
large amounts of omega-3 fatty acids now those important fats facilitate brain development stave
off disease and preserve your mental health so do your brain a favor and work a little more fish
into your diet number ten synchronized brains countless studies have shown the extraordinary
ways that music interacts with the human brain it evokes emotions recalls memories improves
creativity and problem-solving but a German study discovered that music could actually synchronize
brain functions to test this out they scan the brains of two musicians while they played music
together and sure enough the music slowly but surely synchronize their brainwaves it's very
possible that the best bands sound so good together because their brains are working in
tandem number eleven first brain surgeries if you had to guess when would you say the first
brain surgery was ever conducted the surgical world made its first real bit of progress in the
late 18th century yeah you'd think the first brain surgery happened somewhere around then right after
all brain surgery is one of the most complicated and volatile kinds of surgery there is just one
little slip-up could completely ruin your patients life a tiny cut could steal away their speech or
change their entire personality well surprisingly the first brain surgery happened during the Stone
Age yeah over 5,000 years ago early humans were doing something called trepanation it's when you
remove a bone from someone's skull archeologists have already found dozens of examples of this
ancient surgical technique chances are it wasn't all that safe or effective but these people were
still performing surgery before things like math or written language ever existed number twelve
five-year-olds brain the brain develops in a pretty strange way when you're born it's about
1/4 of the size of an adult brain that's pretty big considering how small an infant actually is
but as we all know there's a lot of things a baby can't quite get their heads around that's because
their quarter-sized brain is primarily focused on keeping them alive it handles automatic processes
like making your heart beats and helping your lungs breathe now you'd expect your brain to
keep growing at a steady pace right that way by the time you get to turn say 25 it would be full
grown but that isn't how your brain works it actually doubles in size during the first year
of life and by 3 years old your brain is almost 80% of an adult brain that number jumps up the
90% by the age of 5 during those crucial years your brain is forming millions of new synapses
every single second it's learning everything from symbol recognition to behavioral habits
which are important functions that you'll need later in life so the next time you're talking
to a five-year-old try to remember that their brain is almost as big as yours hey thank you
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