B-Power

Let's forget about the conspiracy theory and focus on the facts. We are simply magnificent! Especially our brains. Like a millions of super fast and super functional computers. With 80-100 billion nerve cells, known as neurons, the human brain is capable of some astonishing feats. Each neuron is connected to more than 1,000 other neurons, making the total number of connections in the brain around 60 trillion! Neurons are organized into patterns and networks within the brain and communicate with each other at incredible speeds.

Those networks are the masterpiece of creation! That's why brain researches are intriguing. Human brain evolved though all it's existence. It is definitely bigger now than our ancestors brains. First brains were similar size to those of chimpanzees. But over time, human and chimpanzee brains evolved in several different and important ways.

The most obvious reason why human brain is unique – the size. It's three times bigger than chimpanzees brain (Average weight of adult chimpanzee brain: 384 g (0.85lb), Average weight of modern human brain: 1352 g (2.98lb))! Moreover researchers found that across sixteen brain regions, most distinct region is stratum (a region involved in motor coordination, reward and decision-making). They also found a feature that links humans to monkeys. Rare population of interneurons that produce dopamine (hormone of happiness) which is enriched in the human stratum only. These cells were somehow lost in the lineage and recovered specifically in the human lineage.

The question remains: How is that possible, that human kind evolve such a huge brain? Fossils established the Brain Boom as fact. But they tell us nothing about how and why the human brain grew so large so quickly. Increasingly complex social networks, a culture built around tool use and collaboration, the challenge of adapting to a mercurial and often harsh climate — any or all of these evolutionary pressures could have an huge input in the process.

What is the key ingredient to the brain evolution? That question remain with no answer for now. Although we still can work and discover different aspects of our brains. When we say, that someone is intelligent, we usually mean that they are self-aware and have high understanding of the world around them. Some people belief that you need to be born with high IQ. It is not exactly that simple. Our IQ is influenced by many subtle factors like nutritious diet, parenting, education. However, there is no escaping the fact that intelligence is inherited to some degree. It was found that the IQ of children adopted at birth bore little correlation with that of their adoptive parents, but strongly correlated with that of their biological parents. What’s more, this association became stronger as the children grew older.

So it's 50% chances that if our parents are not the brightest we also might not be. Although we have another 50% from environment to be smarter. It all depends on how we look at it. Glass half empty or maybe half full? However we decide to look at this topic, we need to remember that human kind is still evolving. We have yet so much to discover and so much to do! There is still a lot to learn about.

One of my favourite topics in brain related category is mind. The subject of human mind and its etymology is like an Universe. Deeper we go, more questions we have. Why are we thinking? Where are we going? And most of all: The Concept of the "Triune Brain" which is about how our brain is divided. It all is breath-taking. Did you know that some of the creatures on Earth are considered to have more than one brain? But more about it in the next chapter.