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Asked by to Claire, Ian, Sergey, Vicky, Zena on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Sergey Lamzin answered on 17 Jun 2014:
You use 100% of your brain. Otherwise there is no biological purpose to having it.
We are not capable of using over 20% at a time though.
Maybe, maybe women are capable of using 21% at a time, after all they are known for their extraordinary capability for multitasking.
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Claire Shooter answered on 17 Jun 2014:
It’s true in a way. I think the best way to think about it is that as I type I’m only using 5-10% of my keyboard at any one time. If I used 100% of the keyboard all at once all the time then I wouldn’t really produce anything sensible!
Bits of your brain being inactive are just as important in it’s operation as the bits which are active
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Ian Simpson answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Yes this is a popular myth that’s been around roughly since the start of the 20th Century. What underlies it ultimately is that we still don’t know a lot about what certain parts of the brain actually do. There is pretty much no part of the brain that can be damaged without impairing function so it’s all needed.
Most of the brain is actually active most of the time, though the exact amount of activity is debated and depends on how you measure activity. Very obvious forms of activity measured when subjects are performing cognition tasks using techniques such as functional MRI show >>10% activity in cortical areas alone.
As Sergey said, you use all your brain. The evolutionary and metabolic cost of the human brain is enormous, nature doesn’t waste effort.
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Vicky Schneider answered on 18 Jun 2014:
as Sergey and Ian said we use it quite fully and it costs a lot in term of metabolism to keep it going 🙂
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