Mind-Blowing Facts about the Human Brain

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'If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.' Attributed to Emerson M. Pugh.

Lost my right hand in 1993. The mirror box is all that saved me from insanity. It felt clenched exactly as Simon described, when I saw what looked like my right hand open up the pain went away pretty much instantly.

It seems to me that the human brain is flattering itself here.

My grandmother, whom hadn’t spoken French since she was a child, spoke fluent French despite her English being severely affected by her strokes. After a couple days the hospital had to find a French-speaking nurse. She was also an accountant for most of her life and, like the French, could count perfectly after. To this day she still has partial-aphasia when it comes to any English speaking

1:19: 🧠 The brain is the most complex object in the universe, composed of billions of specialized neurons and trillions of neural connections. 3:35: 🧠 The brain's incredible memory capacity and how different regions handle different types of memories. 5:51: 🧠 Split-brain patients, who have undergone Corpus Callosotomy surgery, experience interesting side effects such as the inability to verbally describe images seen by the right half of the brain and difficulty in naming objects held out of sight in the left hand. 9:12: 🧠 Phantom limb sensations occur when amputees feel sensations in body parts that are no longer there, and it is believed to be due to reorganization of neurons in the somatosensory cortex. 11:12: 🧠 The brain can be easily fooled and damaged, leading to unusual effects on perception and behavior. 13:52: 🧠 The brain has remarkable abilities, including precision in body control, spatial neglect, and neuroplasticity. 16:52: 🧠 The brain quickly adapts to new circumstances and repurposes unused areas to learn new tasks, but reverts back to normal when the circumstances change. Recap by T

The brain is the most important organ in the whole body... According to the brain

All I can say is that I seem to have encountered many people in my life who exhibit signs of only using 10% of their brain. Usually right after lunch, when they "forgot" their wallet...

I have very nearly a quarter of my brain removed due to a very large and nasty cancerous brain tumour. It was the front right portion but I have lost no function. My memory is still as good. And I am quite a clever chap by the way if I do say so myself.

‘You have two brains! “Yeah, one’s missing and the other one is out looking for it!” 😂😂😂

My mom recently passed from MS. She was having a lot of seizures at the end, it would cause things like ..the entire concept of left not existing for her? Or cortical blindness which means she was blind but 100% thought she could see just fine. It was sad but also fascinating because of how complicated the brain is. During these episodes she honestly didn't think anything was wrong, even if the entire left side of her body was paralyzed. It just didn't exist anymore (neither did anything to the left) and she was fine cause it had always been like that

It would make sense that the guy born without a corpus callosum would develop speech centers on both halves of the brain. Neuro plasticity plus the fact that the hemispheres were never connected so there would be a demand for speech recognition on both sides

Age 52, I suffered a fall - face versus the lawn and the lawn won. I was in the middle of getting a masters in econ. I couldn't look at a computer for 3 months. It's 3 years later and I still deal with fatigue, intolerance to heat & temp changes, and I have not regained my ability to do higher math (complex algebraic simplification, calculus, linear algebra). I was able to reteach myself math through quadratic equations, and that was it. I got into a knock-down fight with the 1st neurologist because she told me a concussion "wasn't a brain injury". Two things on my side - I research like crazy, and I grasp complex information. Argued that diffuse axonal shear is a brain injury, and what she was siting (nothing on imaging) was the medical textbook definition of the difference between mild/moderate and major TBIs. Ugh. Had to quit the masters program, then had to quit my accounting job as more problems came up. But "not a brain injury", am I right?

I was born with hydrocephalus and I’ve had 7 brain surgeries and I’m thinking about going to medical school to become a neurosurgeon or neurologist and the human brain is in my opinion one of the most fascinating things

A friend of mine got hit on the head by a heavy falling object a couple years ago. He immediately was unable to speak. He apparently received some damage to his speech center. Along with that he had some seizures. He was not able to drive for a while because of it. He started getting speech therapy right away and has regained normal speech and the ability to sing again. (He's a musician). There are still some residual effects and he needs to take medication to prevent seizures.

I'm an anaesthetic nurse and it's fascinating to know that we're still not sure how anaesthetics work on the brain. We just know that they do work.....

I’d go absolutely insane if my vision started lagging like a bad COD lobby.

I have minor nerve damage on the right side of my body, due to an accident. I have a loss of sensation, but it appears due to my brain's body map, that I still know I have a right side, although since the incident, I have suffered a loss of sensation which means if I don't see some event which causes me to suffer a minor injury like a cut...I don't know about it until I see it later....annoying. But at least I know it's only peripheral nerve damage and added to that when it first happened I was also very unstable on my feet, but because I learned dance and movement at primary school, those skills have kicked in from my memory and I am not so bad now, plus the muscle spasms I used to get badly are not so bad now, because I believe my motor center of my brain, has found a way around them. I believe this proves that such things can be overcome by your brain, provided they are not too bad to start with.

Why does the brain have to be so complex? My step dad is suffering from dementia and is slowly losing his memory. You can tell him something, and (about) 5 minutes later, he's forgotten what you said. His long term seems to be intact - he remembers his daughter (from previous marriage). I just don't know how long it will be, before me and my mom are complete strangers to him. 😢 Until then, we are both spending as much time as we can with him. After that, 💔 we will do what we can, when we get to that point 😭.

The brain isn't the only source of neurons in the human body. The second largest concentration of neurons is the gut, The heart also has neurons.