10 Cool Things About the Brain and What It Means for You

If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we’d be so simple that we couldn’t.

The brain may be the only thing in the universe that, by definition, we’re incapable of fully understanding because the thing trying to understand it is the same as the thing that’s trying to be understood.

During wakeful states, the brain consumes around 20 watts of power, enough energy to power a dim light bulb. The computer on your desk uses about 1 million times more energy per calculation than your brain, making your brain the most efficient “computer” we know of.

Optogenetics is a rapidly advancing field in neuroscience. The technique allows scientists to literally activate or silence specific neurons in discrete regions of the brains of animals.