Basic Brain Facts
Approximately 3 pounds
How much does the brain weight?
This is the part of the brain that keeps us safe and helps us run, fight, or freeze if we are in danger and is sometimes called the brain's "guard dog" or "smoke alarm." The problem is, it can't tell a stressful situation from a true emergency and can cause us to react without thinking.
What is the amygdala?
It is more powerful than any super computer you can find.
What is the brain? or How powerful is the brain?
Girls and boys have completely different reactions to it.
What is pain?
For about 1 to 2 hours and about 4 to 7 every night while I sleep.
What is dreaming? or What are dreams?
Between 9 and 11 hours
How many hours of sleep does a 4th, 5th, or 6th grader need every night?
It is shaped like a seahorse and creates, stores, and processes all important facts and memories the thinking part of my brain, the PFC, passes on to it. It helps me keep things I want to remember, like my friend's name, and to remember things I learn.
What is the hippocampus?
More than 250 miles per hour
How fast can neurons send information?
This animal's brain weighs about 13 pounds, but it only makes up 0.15% of their overall weight. Our brains take up 2% of our body weight, so we still have the largest brain compared to body size of all the animals.
What is an elephant?
It can make you smarter and happier.
What is exercise? or What is the benefit to going outside to have a quick run?
Over a hundred billion
How many neurons (brain cells) are in the brain?
They are the cells in my brain, and connections between them are made whenever I do something over and over, learn something new, or solve problems. I have trillions of connections in my brain between these cells.
What are neurons?
Between 60,000 and 70,000 a day
How many thoughts to we have each day?
Scientists think it is trying to wake up your brain by sending oxygen to it...and it's very contagious.
What is a yawn? or Why do we yawn?
It is something most people really like to eat that can increase certain brain waves that make us feel relaxed.
What is chocolate?
Enough to power a light bulb
How much electricity does you brain produce?
The cerebellum helps control my balance. This other important part controls my breathing, keeps my heart pumping, and digests my food.
What is the brain stem?
They send more messages than all the phones in the entire world through a network of trillions of connections between them.
What do neurons do?
When you feel this, you want to spend money.
What is sadness (being sad)?
The part of his brain related to math was 35% wider than the average brain, even though his brain only weighed 2.7 pounds. The person who did the autopsy on his body stole his brain and kept it in a jar for over 20 years.
Who was Albert Einstein? or What was unusual about Albert Einstein's brain?
Over 70%
How much of the brain is made of water?
The part of our brain that sits behind our eyes is the main boss of our brain and body and helps us solve problems, understand what we read, and control our emotions and behavior around others. The catch is that the PFC gets information only when the amygdala is calm. The PFC passes on to the hippocampus anything worth remembering.
What is the prefrontal cortex or PFC?
Thinking, feeling emotions, learning, breathing, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, digesting, and many, many more things.
What does the brain control?
The brain actually knows your touch from somebody else's.
Why doesn't it tickle when I tickle myself?
It would take you over 5,000 years.
How long would it take to count all the neurons in my brain?