MadSci Network: Neuroscience
Query:

Re: which part of the brain do people used most often

Date: Mon May 6 22:04:32 2002
Posted By: Vidya Bhalodia, Grad student, Neuroscience, Washington University in St. Louis
Area of science: Neuroscience
ID: 1020436866.Ns
Message:

You asked a very tough question. Unfortunately, the brain isn't quite like set of lightbulbs that you can switch on to use it and off when you're done with it. The brain is always active, even when you're asleep. Different parts of the brain may be more or less active depending on what you're doing at the time. Perhaps these two pieces of information will help.

1)The brain uses about 20% of the oxygen and 15% of the blood flow in the body, even though by size it contains only about 2% of the weight. (obviously not all tissues are equal). Also of that energy, most of it (60%) is used to maintain the proper concentrations of ions inside and outside the neurons. It is these different concentrations of ions that allow neurons to send electrical signals to each other (so obviously they're very important). The rest is used for cellular 'housekeeping'.
2) One way of understanding which sensory systems are most important to an animal is to look at the amount of brain space devoted to processing of that information. For example, humans are very dependent on visual input, and about 1/3 of our brains are used for processing visual information. In other animals, for example dogs, olfactory information (smell) is more important, and much more space in the brain is used for processing smell than for say vision.

I hope this helped. If you give me a better idea on what your science fair topic is about, perhaps I will be able to answer your question better.


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