Myth: We use only 0.1% of our brain power

Myth

We use only 0.1% of our brain power. Some reputable researchers derived the 0.1% figure from a simple calculation involving the number of neurons and the numbers of synapses residing in the human brain. The resulting figure seemed to imply an astounding computational capacity

Fact

The brain is an energetically very expensive organ. Only major improvements in human diet in the course of evolution made it possible to provide for a substantial gain in the brain mass. If the 0.1% or even the 10% claim was to be true, the unused portions of the brain would quickly fall prey to natural selection resulting in energy-saving shrinkage of the brain. A living brain prunes the circuits that are of little use and sprouts new connections there where they are needed. Portions of the brain are programmed to execute highly specialized functions, other portions can easily be used to store vast expanses of declarative knowledge. The process of forgetting has been fine tuned to maximize the use of the existing storage in the reproductive lifetime. Nevertheless, it is not likely we ever run out of memory space even if we use the trick of spaced repetition

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