Do we really use the brain by 10% - says neuroscientist Philip Khaitovich

Where did the idea of ​​using the brain by 10% come from?

According to one version, it was proposed by American psychologists Boris Sidis and William James. At the end of the 19th century, they observed peasant children and noticed that, compared to the upper strata of the population, they were extremely uneducated. But not because they are worse or untrainable, but because they do not fully use the potential of their brain.

In 1936, writer Lowell Thomas, in the preface to Dale Carnegie's How win friends and influence people" wrote: "Professor William James says that people use only 10 percent of their mental faculties." In fact, James stated that most people do not use their mental potential, meaning that our abilities need to be developed and nourished. However, his words were interpreted somewhat distorted.

It was also unclear that scientists at the beginning of the 20th century could not understand for a long time the significance of the large frontal and parietal lobes of the brain, damage to which did not lead to movement disorders. These zones were called quiet zones, and misunderstanding of their work could lead to the fact that the myth of 10% was strengthened.

It is now known that these zones are responsible for rational thinking, planning, making decisions and adaptation.

Why the idea of ​​using 10% of your brain is wrong

This idea has two different interpretations:

1. A person may not develop the necessary parts of the brain if he did not have access to education, to normal socialization.
2. Even an educated person still uses 5-10% of the brain at any given moment. And if you suddenly magically activate the remaining 90%, he will become genius and will think like a superman.

The first interpretation is reasonable enough, the second not so much.

When we talk about the work of the brain, we need to clearly distinguish between the work that is conscious, on which there is the focus of our cognitive attention, and that which is unconscious. For example, if we hear a loud sound, we startle. This is also the work of the brain, but unconscious.

Our focus of cognitive attention limited. So, our brain analyzes reality through vision in a special way: at every moment it focuses only on a small fragment of the picture that is before your eyes, and then reconstructs it, complements. Therefore, we may not notice or see something, this reconstruction may be inaccurate.

So in terms of cognitive focus, it is true that the part of the brain that we are aware of is small. And most processes occur unconsciously in the brain. Of course, in this case it may seem that we do not use the brain to the fullest. In fact, we are simply not aware of most of its processes.

What would happen if we didn't really use our whole brain?

The answer to this question is known thanks to some research. For example, if a person is born blind, the part of the brain that processes visual information (this is mainly the occipital lobe) will not be reduced. It will be used by the brain for other processes: for processing sound information or, for example, abstract thinking.

After birth, our brain waits for what information will come to it. And if at the right moment some information does not come, then this part of the brain is used for other purposes.

Another example: if a child does not have social connections, the part of the brain that codes our behavior and communication with other people will be used for something else. That is, after 5–7 years, the child cannot be socialized, because this part of the brain is already being used for other purposes.

But if we talk about long-term evolutionary changes, let's say if we move people to darkness and they no longer use eyesight, then after many generations this part of their brain will really decrease, because the flow of information will be reduced. But this is purely hypothetical.

How our brain works

The brain weighs differently for everyone - from 1 to 1.5 kg. Some regions, areas of the brain in people can differ significantly in area, in structure, in connection with other parts of the brain.

The number of nerve cells in the brain is approximately 80 to 90 billion. Of these, in the cerebral cortex of the order of 15-18 billion. And each of the nerve cells is connected to 1,000 to 10,000 other nerve cells. This is a very complex system. But it's not about quantity. neurons. More important is how the connections between nerve cells work, because they determine our knowledge and skills, which are encoded in these connections.

Depending on what we are doing at the moment, you can see a slight difference in the intensity of work of different parts of the brain. It can be measured, for example, using functional MRI, which shows the intensity of blood flow to different regions of the brain. If you listen to a text, your acoustic cortex becomes focused and consumes more blood and oxygen. If you watch a movie, the visual cortex is activated.

But the difference in oxygen consumption is about 1% between those regions of the brain that are actively used and those that should be inactive at the moment.

Inactive processes are also rather conditional. We have a lot of cells in the brain that send out electrical impulses spontaneously. Even if there are no external stimuli, there is still internal activity. Its decrease is possible, for example, during sleep. But it still has a lot of processes that are important, say, for the formation of long-term memory. Sleep is just another mode of brain activity.

Why does everyone's brain work differently?

The difference is due to several factors.

1. Genetic. Someone may have a better visual cortex, and he perceives visual information more efficiently. Someone has a better formed cortex responsible for social abilities. And he will potentially be more able to communicate.
2. Social. Even if the social cortex is perfectly formed, but the person was not socialized as a child, his social skills will be terrible. Our abilities are the sum of the physical architecture of the brain and the information that was laid down in the process of upbringing and life. The second is no less important.

Naturally, the brain has its limits. To take the analogy of physical achievement, a person with broad shoulders and long legs is likely to be a more efficient swimmer than a person with short legs. But if short-legged since childhood teach, and the second - no, the first will swim better. And if you train both equally, of course, the one with better initial data will be more successful. The same thing happens with the brain.

Therefore, some, say, are good at solving problems, others are not. This is also the sum of the innate characteristics of the brain and what was put into it.

In biology, most traits have variability, such as height, weight. You can determine the average value, or you can determine the extreme, and there will not be so many very tall people. The same with the work of the brain: there are some average indicators, but there is genius.

The point is that children who can become geniuses, should be able to develop their talent, even if it is innate. And if we have 0.1% of children capable of becoming geniuses, perhaps none of them realize their potential, because their parents did not take care of them and this talent was not found.

Is it possible to make the brain work better

Of course, the brain can be trained. If you spend time putting information into your brain, and most importantly, teaching it to work with this information, build logical circuits, then it will function better. It's like training: if you learn to run, you can cross-country. You also need to train your brain.

Most likely, each of us has a certain talent, an innate inclination. If there is no pathology, then there is no brain in which everything would be bad.

You just need to give the child the opportunity from a very early age, from the first years of life, to develop diversified, so that this talent find it and let it open.

If we talk about some magic pill that could increase the efficiency of your brain by 300% and give it superhuman abilities, then I will upset you. We all know that there are stimulants that can increase brain function in the short term, like coffee. Caffeine is a neurostimulant that activates certain aspects of the brain for a short time. But any stimulant is addictive in the long run. You will have to drink more coffee for it to work. And if you refuse it, you will be in a sleepy, unproductive state, you will experience withdrawal syndrome.

They can also work, for example, antidepressants, which increase the level of serotonin, due to which the brain feels cheerful. But after a while, he realizes that there is too much serotonin, and reduces the number of receptors for it. And when a person stops taking antidepressants, the level of serotonin drops sharply, and the number of receptors cannot increase dramatically. It takes a few weeks for the brain to rebalance, and that withdrawal syndrome sets in: while the brain restores receptors, it’s hard for you. It will recover, if these are not some chronic serious conditions, but it will still remain modified. Our brain remembers that if you take a certain drug, it will be good, it has developed neural connections for this, and it is impossible to erase this information.

Therefore, if we talk about a magic pill, in the long run, without consequences, it is impossible to increase the efficiency of the brain. The most optimal thing is to train him with reading, logical tasks, languages.