The Brain

Overview

The brain is the body’s most complex organ.

Brainiac-Facts

• The adult human brain weighs approximately 1.4 kg (3 pounds) and contains about 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) and trillions of "support cells" called glia.

  • The brain supports more than 100-500 trillion synapses

• The spinal cord is about 43 to 45 cm long (17-18 inches) in adult humans and weighs about 35-40 grams (1.2-1.4 ounces).

• The backbone that houses and protects the spinal cord, is much longer than the spinal cord—about 70 cm (27 inches) long.

  • The brain is capable of between 10¹⁵ and 10¹⁹ computations per second (CPS). By comparison a modern super computer is capable of 10⁹ CPS.

Explore More

• Genes to Cognition- from Cold Spring Harbor

• The Bionic Brain- from futurist Ray Kurzweil

• TED talk video - Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults

• TED talk- Daniel Wolpert- How does you brain work?

• Debunking 10 Brain Fitness Myths

• Grey Matters: Brain science in the 21st Century- on Youtube

• The human brain is evolving and getting bigger- Scientific American

• Video lesson on right and left hemispheres

• Brain Fitness at Smartbrains

• How the Freaky Octopus Can Help us Understand the Human Brain

• PBS - Scanning the Brain

• What can you do without a brain?