The human brain is just the facts. How brain volume affects human abilities The weight of an adult brain is

How much does the human brain weigh? Does the mass of gray matter affect the intellectual level? How different is the brain weight of a child and an adult? Does it decrease in size with aging? Questions - a large number

So how much does the center of human mental activity weigh?

So, in order. How much does the human brain weigh on average? According to scientific research, the weight of an organ of the central nervous system, consisting of a large number nerve cells, is from 11 to 20 kg (otherwise, 2% of the total body weight).
In males, the mass of gray matter is approximately 100-130 grams more than in the female half.

Is intelligence proportional to weight?

How much does an adult human brain weigh? For a man, the average is 1424 grams. The record weight was recorded in V. S. Turgenev - 2012. For comparison: the weight of the brain of Ludwig van Beethoven was 1750, c. I. Lenin - 1340, Sergei Yesenin - 1920, D. I. Mendeleev - 1571. These indicators refute the theory that the level of intelligence is affected by the weight of the gray matter. The brain of a genius may turn out to be an order of magnitude smaller than the brain of a person deprived of broad mental abilities. It has been scientifically proven that the level of intelligence is influenced by certain parts of a given organ of the nervous system, in which the frequency of the location of neurons and the quantitative connections between them play a key role. As a prime example, the most big brain, weighing 2850 g belonged to an imbecile person.
How much does the modern human brain weigh? The human brain, which occupies almost the entire cavity of the brain part of the skull and takes its shape in the process of growth and development, evolves: in the 19th century, it average weight men was 1372 grams, which is much less than modern values. For the fair sex, the largest indicator is the weight of 1565 grams, the smallest - 1096 grams (was recorded in a 31-year-old lady). It was a woman, or rather a 10-year-old girl, Marilyn Vos Savant, a resident of Missouri (USA), who managed to pass a difficult test in 1956 with a score of 228, which was a kind of pass to the Mega Society, which unites people with the highest IQ scores.

Is brain weight proportional to age?

The mass of gray matter also depends on the age of the person. In a newborn child, this figure averages 455 grams. How much does the adult brain weigh? The human brain is not a constant.
From the moment of birth until the age of 27, the gray matter "grows", and then begins to decrease. Every 10 years, its mass is reduced by 30 grams. By the way, with old age, the speed of the signals of the nervous system also decreases. From an average of 288 km / h, it decreases by 15%.

Efficiency of using the brain in mental activity

How much the human brain weighs - it seems to be clear. The question arises: is this substance used to the maximum? There is an opinion that in life a person uses only 10% of his brain. Is it so? This opinion is ambiguous, but most scientists tend to conclude that the brain uses its full potential in work. To perform even the simplest task, the gray matter is activated in all its departments.
As soon as a person begins to think intensely, the amount of energy consumption entering the body reaches 25%, while at rest, gray matter needs no more than 9% of energy. Activating brain activity requires additional oxygen supply, which causes the brain to take almost a third of it out of the body.

Keep your brain in shape

Keeping the brain in shape helps regular exercise contribute to an increase in capillaries. And this, in turn, ensures the maximum intake of oxygen and glucose into the body. The most effective are exercises, the duration of which is at least 30 minutes a day.
The most effective method of developing the brain is considered to be engaging in new, hitherto unfamiliar activities, as well as communicating with people who are superior in intelligence to the interlocutor. The more educated a person is, the less likely it is for the occurrence of brain diseases, because mental activity causes the production of additional tissue that replaces the affected one.

A little about the brain of other living organisms

How much the human brain weighs - it became clear from the above. And what is its weight, for example, an elephant? Compared to the human, the brain of the representatives of the largest mammals on the planet is 2 times larger and weighs from 4 to 5 kg. This once again confirms the theory that the level of intelligence and the weight of gray matter are in different planes. The largest animal, belongs to the class of mammals, is the blue whale. Its average weight is 150 tons, and its length is 30 meters. The weight of the brain is 9 kg, with its ratio to body weight: 1 to 40,000. But long-extinct dinosaurs reached 9 meters in height, the brain was the size of Walnut and weighed only 70 grams.

Publication date: 05/22/17

One of the most unusual questions that each of us must have asked is how much our brain weighs. It would seem that knowing the answer to this question will not give anything useful, but we still continue to ask it. The point here, rather, is not a craving for knowledge. It's just that often we meet people who amaze us with their mental abilities for better or for worse. We enthusiastically think about a genius - how many brains he has! About the fool - we think quite the opposite. However, you will be very surprised when you learn that the size and weight of our brain is in no way related to intelligence.

But first, let's answer the question we asked at the very beginning. The average brain mass ranges from 1100 to 2200 g. If you narrow the range more, you get a figure of 1200 - 1500 g. At the same time, the brain changes its mass during a person's life. The weight of the brain is 300-450 g, after which it begins to grow with the body. This is not surprising and quite logical, but almost no one except doctors knows about the following fact. It turns out that the weight of the brain in every adult reaches its maximum by the age of 27, after which it begins to fall. For every subsequent ten years, the brain "loses weight" by as much as 30 grams.

As a percentage, the weight of the brain is approximately equal to 1/50 of the total body weight of a person. At the same time, this organ receives much more nutrition and oxygen than 2% of their total amount. All this testifies to him as the most important part. Through the brain, the work of other organs and systems is controlled, motor activity, there is a reaction to external stimuli, etc.

Men are very fond of making fun of the fact that women are supposedly dumber than them. Not very smart men will also be delighted when they find out that on average their brain is 100-150 grams heavier than a woman's. However, this does not affect intelligence, and the difference in mass is explained very simply. female body by nature, smaller and lighter than the male, so the weight of the head will be lower. And if you translate it into a percentage relative to body weight, then the advantage will be completely for the weaker sex.

Dependence of brain weight and intelligence level

Not knowing the results scientific research, we can draw a simple conclusion about the dependence of the mass of the head and its mental abilities. Like, if a person is stupid, then he doesn’t have enough “brains”. Conversely, smart people are often referred to as "brainy", although they are no different in head size from those around them.

However, the research scientists will amaze you. The largest brain ever measured belonged to an imbecile. Scientists were surprised to find out how much he weighs after the death of the patient: almost 3 kg! In brilliant or simply smart people, the brain weighed no more and no less than the rest. In addition, as mentioned above, the weight of the human brain gradually decreases after 27 years. The brain is weighed after the death of a person, that is, as a rule, in old age.

To explain these differences in the weight of the "brains" will help to know the structure of this organ. Mental abilities are affected by the gray matter of the brain, which is a dense network of nerve cells. It is not known exactly how many there are, but the number goes into the billions. Smart people have more of these cells than the rest, but they do not greatly affect the mass of the brain. But dementia is characterized by an increase in the thickness of the cerebral cortex, which gives a significant increase in mass.

Video

Brain mass of some famous people

How much a human brain weighs is best studied using specific and well-known examples. Weighing the brains of famous personalities once again confirmed the fact that the mass of a person’s brain tissue does not affect his genius in any way. Below is a list famous people, whose brain data were obtained after the autopsy. As you can see, the range of values ​​is quite large:

  • Sergei Yesenin: 1.92 kg;
  • Lev Trotsky: 1.57 kg;
  • Otto von Bismarck: 1.97 kg;
  • Vladimir Lenin: 1.34 kg;
  • Ludwig van Beethoven: 1.75 kg;
  • Anatole France: 1.02 kg;
  • Ivan Turgenev: 2.01 kg.

It is especially unusual to see the last two lines. "Brains" of two famous writers differ from each other twice in mass. And this means that it does not matter at all how much the brain of a particular person weighs.

Comparison of the human and animal brain

To use the weight of the brain as a confirmation of the high mental abilities of a person is possible only in comparison with animals. In this case, the comparison should be carried out not in absolute values, but relative to the mass of the rest of the body. After all, if we take only numerical values, then the most "intelligent" mammal on Earth would be a blue whale. How much his brain weighs can be read in the book of records: as much as 9 kg, which is the highest figure among all animals .. However, these 9 kg are only 1/40,000 of the rest of the whale's mass, which speaks eloquently of his "mental abilities".

The brain of an elephant weighs less - about 4-5 kg, and the ratio between this value and the mass of the rest of the body is approximately 1:500. Compared to whales, this is a very good indicator, so it is not surprising that elephants are considered intelligent animals. Dolphins are considered even more intelligent mammals, whose brain mass is different types lies in the range of 1.7-2.3 kg. In monkeys of the chimpanzee species, the brain weighs about 0.75-0.8% of the total body weight.

Women often complain that men do not understand them. Representatives of the stronger sex often make similar claims. The reason for both of them is usually considered insufficient good relationship partner. According to experts, this is not the reason at all, but that the brain of a man and the brain of a woman work so differently that difficulties arise by themselves.

Today we will tell the reader about the most important of these differences.

Source: depositphotos.com

Dimensions and neural connections of the brain

The male brain is on average 10% heavier than the female. Scientists argue that this does not give any advantages in the intellectual sense: the relative increase in the body corresponds to the need to control a more massive body.

Differences in the arrangement of neural connections in the brains of men and women are much more significant. The fair sex is dominated by cross connections, that is, those that connect the right (responsible for logical thinking) and the left (responsible for intuition) hemispheres. Therefore, women do not experience any particular problems in solving problems for which it is necessary to use both flair and a cold mind. The male brain is dominated by longitudinal connections connecting the anterior and posterior cortex. The exception is the cerebellar zone: in the named place, the connections between the hemispheres in men are very well developed, which explains the ability of the stronger sex to easily learn complex physical actions and achieve great success in cases requiring a high degree of control over one's body.

In men, the lower parietal lobe of the brain, which is responsible for the ability to do mathematics, is better developed, and in women, the zones of both hemispheres, which determine the ability to perceive the features of the language and use colloquial speech, are better developed.

Age-related changes in the brain

At an early age, the difference between a boy's brain and a girl's is minimal; differences begin to appear between the ages of 14 and 17 and increase with age.

As the body ages, the human brain "shrinks", losing part of its volume. In men and women, this process proceeds with significant differences. Thus, in the representatives of the stronger sex, the frontal and temporal lobes decrease most rapidly, the function of which is to control cognitive abilities, emotions and personal characteristics. In women, the parietal lobe and the hippocampal region, which are responsible for spatial perception, vision, speech and memory, “dry out” faster. In general, in men, the decrease in brain volume begins earlier than in their peers. Scientists attribute this feature to the protective effect of estrogen on the brain. The most active decrease in the size of the brain in women occurs at the age of menopause, when the production of sex hormones decreases sharply.

In addition, the brain of a woman and the brain of a man are subject to different degrees of neurodegenerative changes: women are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, while men are more likely to develop Parkinson's disease.

Perception of signals from the senses

Women's hearing is sharper and thinner than men's, and the point here is not in the hearing aid as such: the female brain is able to perceive sounds more clearly, to highlight the smallest intonations. Similarly, men lose out to their girlfriends in terms of detailing tactile sensations.

Similar differences in visual acuity have not been established, but there is a significant difference in the perception of visual signals: a man usually sees the whole picture better, and a woman fixes attention on details.

Logic and emotions

Women, on average, have better memories than men vocabulary and higher speech activity. In addition, the fair sex has better developed emotional aspects of thinking. But men are able to more sensibly assess the surrounding reality, without complicating events with their anxieties, suspicions and subjective approach.

In any circumstances, a man pays attention to the quantitative, factual side of the issue, and a woman - to the details and emotional coloring of events. For example, when driving in a car unfamiliar city, the husband remembers the time intervals spent on separate parts of the road, and his wife remembers various objects that can serve as landmarks (buildings, signs, etc.). Even the representatives of the sexes show a sense of humor in different ways: a man is interested in the “salt” of a joke, and a woman likes the story itself more, gradually revealing the meaning of a funny situation.

Behavioral and social differences

Men and women not only feel and think, but also behave differently. The fair sex is by nature contact, prone to establishing trusting relationships. Women are considered the best organizers, able to unobtrusively bring people together to solve a common problem. Men are rather “loners”, more adapted to competition, ambitious and aggressive. In a conflict situation, a woman prefers to solve the problem through negotiations, and a man prefers to aggravate the conflict.

The female tendency to some dispersion of attention to details and details also has a positive side: any representative of the weaker sex easily combines several streams of information and is able to do several things at the same time. male way thinking involves complete focus on a particular topic, and the transition from one thing to another requires some effort and time.

Knowing the features of the structure of the brain of men and the brain of women is very useful. In fact, this is the easiest way to understand each other and stop conflicting over trifles. Remembering how the other person differs from you, you can become his support, and save yourself from far-fetched grievances and disappointments. Take care of each other and be happy!

Video from YouTube on the topic of the article:

How much interesting facts humanity knows about the brain, but many times more is not known about this organ of the central nervous system. For example, what is memory, where is the memorized information stored, why could the volume of the brain of prominent intellectuals differ in weight by several times? Let's take a look at the anthropometry of this mysterious organ, the shape of which resembles the appearance of a walnut kernel.

power usage

Any brain size modern man exceeds that of any other animal. The energy consumption of this organ will come as a surprise to most people who learn that about half of the glucose produced in the liver is consumed by the brain. The figure can be about 20 percent of the body's energy, and more clearly 10-15 watts with a small load.

Active mental activity requires up to 25 W of power, and for scientific luminaries this figure sometimes reaches 30 W. In this case, a much larger number of electrical impulses are generated than all Computer Engineering planets. The mass of the brain is much smaller in this case.

Evolution has created a more efficient mechanism for processing the received information, compared to the technical solutions of people.

Anthropometry

It is difficult to accurately determine the volume of the human brain in our time. Doctors mainly resort to empirical formulas for calculating the physical dimensions of an organ. So the overall dimensions of the skull in centimeters are taken, multiplied, a couple of coefficients are added and an approximate result is obtained. Moreover, the linear size of the skull of men and women is calculated using different formulas.

The bigger, the better

There is an opinion: the more brains, the smarter their owner, be it a person or an animal. Everything is correct. In terms of mental abilities, Mammals are far superior to worms and insects, and apes are far superior to their less developed relatives. Well, this is how to look: the size of their brains is enough for birds, worms and monkeys to survive in their familiar environment, and a person constantly adjusts his habitat and lifestyle to suit himself. And in the last century, this process has outstripped the duration of people's lives: in the life of a generation, the world changes so much that a person needs to constantly learn in order to live in it, or go into the jungle.

Now about the interesting.

  • The results of studies of the XIX century and the present do not indicate that the mass of the brain has grown.
  • In insects, its role is replaced by nerve nodes and a chain.
  • The brain of Anatole France weighed half as much as that of Ivan Turgenev.
  • If, after more than 20 years, the adult brain begins to lose approximately 1 gram per year, and closer to 50-60, the figure grows to 2, and sometimes even 3 grams, then after 60 years, this figure of weight loss can exceed 4 grams per year. Interestingly, acquiring new skills and knowledge and engaging in intellectual activity do not have a positive effect on the weight of the brain. It grows only in children and adolescents.
  • The maximum weight of the organ was recorded in an idiot and an epileptic, and it functioned defectively.

Conclusion: no matter how much the human or animal brain weighs. More important here are the ratio of organ mass to body mass and the number of connections between neurons. It is not for nothing that science has established that an active person (reading books) uses about 5% of the intellectual potential. For those who are not familiar with mental activity, even 3% is enough, and it does not matter whether it is a woman or a man.

The number of neurons also says little about the capacity of the cranium: with an equal number of them in different animal species, some differ significantly in intellectual abilities, but only in solving problems proposed by man.

Correlations

Many people think that the modern human brain is slightly larger than the brains of the great ape, but this is not so. Human intelligence really surpasses the mental abilities of any animal, the second "intelligence" is a dolphin, not a chimpanzee. The human brain can weigh up to 2% of body weight, that is, it is 50 or slightly more times lighter than the entire body, in dolphins the figure is about 80 times, and in chimpanzees it is about 120. But even such a calculation does not give high accuracy, after all, it has been established that in various mammals the intellect to a large extent depends on the area of ​​the cortex (neocortex), which is increased due to convolutions.

Mass indicators

It is no secret that the female and male center of the nervous system differs in weight. This was established in 1882 by Francis Gatton and repeatedly confirmed by scientists from various research institutes and centers around the globe.

This difference is 100-150 grams on average.

The weight

Finally, we came to the most interesting: how much does the human brain weigh, and what is its average size. An organ with the following dimensions is considered normal:

  • length (from the frontal lobes to the back of the head) - 160-175 mm;
  • width - 135-145 mm;
  • height (vertical section) 105-125 mm.

This is in an adult. In the elderly, children and adolescents, these numbers will be lower, as well as in those whose brain is influenced by factors harmful to it. environment(alcohol, drugs).

What is the average mass

The average value is considered to be 1.38 kg for the stronger sex and 1.24 kg for the weaker sex. Individual correlations can be 900 - 2000 grams. Highly intelligent people, professionals in any field of activity and creative individuals do not differ in an increased mass of brain matter. Its density is 1.038-1.04.

In children

Newborns and infants differ in brain mass, which reaches 10% (350-450 grams is considered the norm) of body weight and decreases markedly in the first years of his life and development. At two years, for example, the weight fluctuates around 900 grams, and at six - 1.2 kg. Over the next 10-16 years, the brain gains only about 0.2 kg in weight.

Large and small weight

The lightest brain that was recorded was possessed by a 46-year-old man. The weight was only 680 grams, and such a tiny organ had no effect on the behavior and social skills of a person. Although back in 1873, K. Focht established that the threshold for brain mass is in the range of 750-800 grams. Those who had a lighter organ, were distinguished by the presence of microcephaly, simplified behavior, could have simplified speech, their development did not often differ from the mental abilities of children 3-6 years old. Such people led an almost asocial lifestyle, grazed sheep, collected firewood, berries.

The mass of the largest brain is 2850 grams, while its owner, as mentioned above, was an idiot and a schizophrenic. In the same 19th century, the largest brain of a normal person was recorded. It was 2222 grams.

Racial and national differences

The haplogroup also affects the weight of the brain. The owners of R1A, which are the majority or a significant part of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Serbs, Brahmins of India and a less significant percentage of representatives of other peoples, are endowed with the most massive brain. For Western Europeans and Asian peoples, it is slightly less. African Americans have the smallest brain weight - it weighs about 100 grams less than that of white Americans.

Brain size doesn't always matter, at least not decisively. A man is not always smarter than women, them nervous systems sharpened to solve various problems. But among various peoples, it has been noticed that among the Slavs and their descendants, who carry the Y-chromosome R1A, there are most of all creators and inventors than the Negroid population is no different.

Secondly, the available energy has been optimized by lowering the cost of locomotion by bipedalism and the cost of reproduction, such as increasing lifespan and extending the development period. Cooking is in the category of strategies that would reduce resource fluctuations as it allowed our ancestors to access a range of resources that were not previously available as it was too difficult to process or toxic without cooking. Recently, research has shown that cooking allows you to better absorb the energy contained in the diet.

One of the most unusual questions that each of us must have asked is how much our brain weighs. It would seem that knowing the answer to this question will not give anything useful, but we still continue to ask it. The point here, rather, is not a craving for knowledge. It's just that often we meet people who amaze us with their mental abilities for better or for worse. We enthusiastically think about a genius - how many brains he has! About the fool - we think quite the opposite. However, you will be very surprised when you learn that the size and weight of our brain is in no way related to intelligence.

Under the energy-expensive tissue hypothesis, it is believed that cooking and improving the quality of the diet allowed the digestive system to “free up” and redirect the energy stored in digestion to a larger brain size. Does cooperation in breeding matter?

How has longevity and the presence of grandparents affected? This is confirmed by studies published by Karin Isler, who is the co-author of this article. Karin has shown that breeding cooperation relieves the mother of some of the energy costs of reproduction, allowing her to "make" more puppies, but also increases and stabilizes the amount of energy that is provided to the offspring. The more energy in the system, the more it can be used to increase the brain.

But first, let's answer the question we asked at the very beginning. The average brain mass ranges from 1100 to 2200 g. If you narrow the range more, you get a figure of 1200 - 1500 g. At the same time, the brain changes its mass during a person's life. The weight of the brain is 300-450 g, after which it begins to grow with the body. This is not surprising and quite logical, but almost no one except doctors knows about the following fact. It turns out that the weight of the brain in every adult reaches its maximum by the age of 27, after which it begins to fall. For every subsequent ten years, the brain "loses weight" by as much as 30 grams.

But what attracted attention and is the starting point for the answer. Unless domesticated foxes have fewer brains. Typically, dogs, cats, and other pets have 25% less brains than wild animals. But would it be dangerous to assume that women's brains are smaller than men's because for millennia we've chosen friendly women to breed? And, in turn, did they choose assertive men? Interestingly, the human skulls of both sexes have been shrinking in recent millennia, suggesting that humans are becoming more domesticated, according to the study.

Men are very fond of making fun of the fact that women are supposedly dumber than them. Not very smart men will also be delighted when they find out that on average their brain is 100-150 grams heavier than a woman's. However, this does not affect intelligence, and the difference in mass is explained very simply. The female body is naturally smaller and lighter than the male body, therefore the weight of the head will be lower. And if you translate it into a percentage relative to body weight, then the advantage will be completely for the weaker sex.

The force that increases brain size is social interaction. According to biologist Robert Trivers, author of Social Evolution, there is a direct correlation between the brain size of a species, the size of its social groups, and the degree of social interaction between group animals. Men and women live in different social realms, and while women can naturally enjoy deeper social interactions than men; It is likely that men, as tribal leaders, have experienced wider social interactions over evolutionary time.

Dependence of brain weight and intelligence level

Without knowing the results of scientific research, one can draw a simple conclusion about the dependence of the mass of the brain and its mental abilities. Like, if a person is stupid, then he doesn’t have enough “brains”. Conversely, smart people are often referred to as "brainy", although they are no different in head size from those around them.

In any case, small brain size appears to optimize emotional intelligence. In a paper published a month ago in Current Biology, Brian Hare and colleagues at Harvard University showed that domestic foxes are better at reading human signals than wild foxes. For example, domestic foxes instinctively understand a person's intent when they point to an object and they examine it.

They understand them, but they don't want to. In addition, we must consider the size of the body. Regardless of other factors, there is a direct correlation between body size and brain size. Therefore, since women are smaller than men, their brains are also smaller. Is there any of this? A recent article in the British Psychology Journal by Paul Irving of the University of Manchester and Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster stated this. Also, we don't know enough about our brains to make an accurate inference from any of these observations.

However, the research scientists will amaze you. The largest brain that could be measured belonged to a demented person. Scientists were surprised to find out how much he weighs after the death of the patient: almost 3 kg! In brilliant or simply smart people, the brain weighed no more and no less than the rest. In addition, as mentioned above, the weight of the human brain gradually decreases after 27 years. The brain is weighed after the death of a person, that is, as a rule, in old age.

Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard, lost his job when he suggested that women couldn't rise to the same intellectual levels as men, so the next question might be dangerous for me. As with almost every other part of the body and system, the brain continues to grow for several years after birth. Scientists have systematically studied brain development to determine the age at which it is fully developed. Unfortunately, there is no specific age when brain development is complete.

At the time of birth, most brain cells develop and almost every neuron has a brain. However, these cells and neurons are not fully connected in the brain and require additional time for their connections to form. By age 2, a child's brain is about 80 percent of the adult size of about 120 grams in males.

To explain these differences in the weight of the "brains" will help to know the structure of this organ. Mental abilities are affected by the gray matter of the brain, which is a dense network of nerve cells. It is not known exactly how many there are, but the number goes into the billions. Smart people have more of these cells than the rest, but they do not greatly affect the mass of the brain. But dementia is characterized by an increase in the thickness of the cerebral cortex, which gives a significant increase in mass.

By the time a child reaches age 3, the brain has formed nearly 000 billion neural connections, about twice as many as an adult brain. Around the age of 11, the brain begins to gradually move away from unnecessary and inefficient connections.

Although the brain reaches its adult weight at age 21, it continues to develop over several years. In fact, a study by the National Institutes of Health found that the area of ​​the brain that discourages risk-taking behavior doesn't fully form until age 25. This is the final stage of brain development.

Video

Brain mass of some famous people

How much a human brain weighs is best studied using specific and well-known examples. Weighing the brains of famous personalities once again confirmed the fact that the mass of a person’s brain tissue does not affect his genius in any way. The following is a list of notable people whose brain data has been obtained since autopsies. As you can see, the range of values ​​is quite large:

It is important to keep in mind that while the brain reaches its final stage of development at age 25, learning continues throughout life. The brain's neural connections continue to form, change, and rewire as they encounter new experiences and ideas.

Thus, the key is to delimit the circuits of neurons associated with certain ailments or functions in order to act on them specifically and not on others. “This allows us,” he concludes, “to move the coil around in space and see where we will be stimulating that brain.”

  • Sergei Yesenin: 1.92 kg;
  • Lev Trotsky: 1.57 kg;
  • Otto von Bismarck: 1.97 kg;
  • Vladimir Lenin: 1.34 kg;
  • Ludwig van Beethoven: 1.75 kg;
  • Anatole France: 1.02 kg;
  • Ivan Turgenev: 2.01 kg.

It is especially unusual to see the last two lines. The "brains" of two famous writers differ from each other twice in mass. And this means that it does not matter at all how much the brain of a particular person weighs.

The Secrets of Brain Energy Consumption

The brain is approximately 2% by weight. However, it consumes 20% of energy human body. This in itself is amazing. Why the hell do you need it? The usual answer is: because thanks to the brain we relate to the outside world. "No doubt it's true," he adds, thanks to the brain we can see. William James, the father of modern psychology whom Reichl cites in the article, suggests that we see with our eyes and we hear with our ears, but this is not true. Our eyes capture the image, the information they send to the brain, and we see the brain.


Comparison of the human and animal brain

To use the weight of the brain as a confirmation of the high mental abilities of a person is possible only in comparison with animals. In this case, the comparison should be carried out not in absolute values, but relative to the mass of the rest of the body. After all, if we take only numerical values, then the most "intelligent" mammal on Earth would be a blue whale. How much his brain weighs can be read in the book of records: as much as 9 kg, which is the highest figure among all animals .. However, these 9 kg are only 1/40,000 of the rest of the whale's mass, which speaks eloquently of his "mental abilities".

The same with the ears. Eyes and ears will enter "devices". Our eye is not a camera that sends everything in front of us, but it has expectations. It's a camera that only sees what you're looking at, you only see what your brain wants, what it expects from you.

So much so that our eyes receive much more information than we actually see. "When you learn something or you belong to a social group, your brain changes." And partly it has the effect that the comment has not been completely inhibited. To do it, but if it has to be done, it will be like an accident.

The brain of an elephant weighs less - about 4-5 kg, and the ratio between this value and the mass of the rest of the body is approximately 1:500. Compared to whales, this is a very good indicator, so it is not surprising that elephants are considered intelligent animals. Dolphins are considered even more intelligent mammals, whose brain mass in different species lies in the range of 1.7-2.3 kg. In monkeys of the chimpanzee species, the brain weighs about 0.75-0.8% of the total body weight.

Recent areas of research

It seems to me that he uses it to support the critical and fundamental role that the brain has to organically regulate the homeostasis of the human body, that is, health, in the most general sense in the individual. For a long time, explains Pascual-Leone, we have been in my laboratory dedicated to the question of how we manage the plasticity of the brain, the ability of the brain to adapt to changes in relation to illness or experience, learning or with experience, we have learned a lot and with very interesting results.