52 Brain Facts – Knowing Neurons

52 Brain Facts Did You Know? Popular Articles

It’s Brain Awareness Week!

March 13, 2017June 30, 2017 Kate Fehlhaber 0 Comments 10 Brain Facts, 52 Brain Facts, BAW, Brain Awareness Week, Interviews, Videos, Weird Animal Brains

Every March, Brain Awareness Week (BAW, for short) unifies the world in celebration of the brain and mind! In order to raise awareness about how the brain works, what neuroscientists… Read more

Myth or Fact? One region of the brain sets us humans apart from other species.

August 22, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Analyze, Architecture, Awesome, Brain, Communicate, Control, Cool, Cortex, Evolution, Evolve, Fact, Knowing Neurons, language, Large, Logical, Myth, Neocortex, Rainbow, SciArt, SciComm

Myth or Fact? Your vibrating cell phone helps release sodium ions.

August 15, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Action Potential, Awesome, Brain, Connective tissue, Cool, Fact, Feel, Ion, Ions, Myth, Nerve, Nervous System, Pacinian corpuscle, Pacinian corpuscles, Pressue, Sodium, Spike, Touch, Vibration

52 Brain Facts Sleep

Myth or Fact? Your brain paralyzes your body when you sleep.

August 8, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Paralysis, REM, Sleep

Myth or Fact? The Brain Can Form Honest Lies

August 1, 2016June 5, 2019 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Deceit, Fact, Honest, Honesty, Korsakoff, Lie, Psychiatry, True, Truth

Myth or Fact? The Brain Doesn’t Listen to the Heart

July 25, 2016June 5, 2019 knowingneurons 3 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Cortex, Heart, Heartbeat, Research, RomCom

52 Brain Facts Sensation and Perception

Myth or Fact? Some People Can Use Echolocation

July 18, 2016June 5, 2019 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Audition, auditory, Bat, Blind, Cane, Click, Cortex, Echolocation, Hear, Hearing, Location, Navigate, Sense, Sight, Sound, Tap, Vision, Whale

52 Brain Facts Neuroscience Technologies

Myth or Fact? It is possible to make the whole brain transparent.

July 11, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, CLARITY, clear, Fat, Hydrogel, Imaging, Lipid, Opaque, see-through, Technique

52 Brain Facts Sleep

Myth or Fact? A misfolded protein can cause you to never sleep again.

July 4, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Disease, Fatal Familial Insomnia, FFI, gene, Insomnia, Misfolded, mutation, Neurons, Prion, Protein, Sleep, Thalamus

Myth or Fact? Drug abuse can put holes in your brain.

June 27, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 4 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Addiction, Brain, Cocaine, Dopamine, Drug Abuse, Drugs, Function, Hole, neurotransmitter, Reward, Trauma

Myth or Fact? The brain is completely separated from the body’s immune network.

June 20, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Blood, Blood-brain barrier, Brain, Immune, Lymphatic, Meninges, Microscope, Microscopy, Vessels

Myth or Fact? Neurons can be genetically engineered to come in all colors of the rainbow.

June 13, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 4 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Animal, Blue, Brain, Brainbow, connectome, Cool, Engineer, Engineering, Fact, Fluorescent, gene, genetic, Green, Image, Mice, Modification, Modified, Mouse, Rainbow, Red

Myth or Fact? Eating blueberries is good for your brain.

May 30, 2016June 30, 2017 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Blueberries, Brain, Communication, Health, Learning, Memory, Motor control, stress, Weak

Myth or Fact? Everyone can mentally “tag” their friends.

May 16, 2016June 11, 2016 knowingneurons 3 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Face, Face Blindness, Fact, FFA, Fusiform face area, Head, Injury, Prosopagnosia, Recognition, Recognize, stroke

Myth or Fact? A little stress is good for the brain.

May 9, 2016June 4, 2016 knowingneurons 4 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Benefit, Brain, Dread, glucocorticoid, Hippocampus, Hormone, Hypothalamus, LTP, Memory, Neuroscience, Plasticity, Risk, Roller coaster, stress, Synapse, Time

Myth or Fact? The nematode is the only organism with a complete neuronal map.

May 2, 2016May 3, 2016 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, C. elegans, Caenorhabditis elegans, connectivity, connectome, Diagram, Map, nematode, Neuron, Synapse, worm

Myth or Fact? Your brain has a waste disposal system.

April 25, 2016May 3, 2016 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Blood, Brain, Degradation, Disposal, Elimination, Enzyme, Garbage, Neurodegenerative disease, Neuroscience, Waste

Myth or Fact? Cortical folding is a lot like crumpling paper.

April 18, 2016May 3, 2016 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Cortex, Folding

Myth or Fact? Having multiple personalities is a hallmark of schizophrenia.

Myth or Fact? Having multiple personalities is a hallmark of schizophrenia.

April 11, 2016April 28, 2016 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Disorder, Hallucination, Neuroscience, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Symptom

Myth or Fact? Vaccines cause autism.

April 4, 2016January 18, 2017 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, ASD, Autism, Brain, CDC, Center for Disease Control, Falsified Data, measles-mumps-rubella, Misinformation, MMR, Myth, Vaccination, Vaccine

Myth or Fact? When geneticists talk about Manhattan, they don’t mean NYC.

March 28, 2016April 3, 2016 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Biology, Brain, Chromosome, Disease, DNA, gene, Genetics, Manhattan, Method, Neuroscience, Plot, Scatter, Science, Significance, Skyline, SNP, Trait, Value

Myth or Fact? Dyslexia varies across different languages.

March 21, 2016March 27, 2016 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Dyslexia, Grapheme, language, Letter, Phoneme, Sound

Myth or Fact? We only dream when we sleep.

March 14, 2016March 13, 2016 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Day Dream, Dreaming, hypnagogic hallucination, Narcolepsy, Sleep

52 Brain Facts Popular Articles

Myth or Fact? Many psychopaths have a poor sense of smell.

March 7, 2016March 23, 2016 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Frontal lobe, Olfaction, olfactory, Olfactory Bulb, Perception, Psychopath, Smell

Myth or Fact? Everyone perceives bitter taste the same way.

February 22, 2016February 22, 2016 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, bitter, Bitterness, Chocolate, Kale, TAS2R38, taste

Myth or Fact? Folic acid is important for embryonic brain development.

February 17, 2016February 17, 2016 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Asparagus, Baby, Broccoli, Development, Fetal, Fetus, Folic Acid, Green, Neuroscience, Pregnancy, Pregnant, Spinach

52 Brain Facts Popular Articles

Myth or Fact? The brain is the fattest organ in the body.

February 8, 2016March 23, 2016 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Body, Brain, Fact, Fat, Organ

Myth or Fact? All animals have only five senses.

February 1, 2016February 10, 2016 knowingneurons 5 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Five, Magnet, Magnetic, Magnetoreception, Navigation, Senses

Myth or Fact? Splitting the brain results in two largely independent streams of consciousness.

January 25, 2016February 10, 2016 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Cerebral, Consciousness, Corpus callosum, Hemisphere, Split, Split brain

Myth or Fact? 10% of your genes describe the organization of the brain.

January 18, 2016February 7, 2016 knowingneurons 1 Comment 50%, 52 Brain Facts, 98%, Body, Brain, complex, Development, DNA, genes, Knowing Neurons, Organization

Myth or Fact? Bigger brains are smarter brains.

January 11, 2016February 11, 2016 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Big, Brain, Knowing Neurons, Size

Myth or Fact? Blind spots do not occur in healthy eyes.

January 4, 2016February 3, 2016 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Blind, Blind spot, Brain, Eye, Nerve, Optic nerve, Retina

Myth or Fact? All human senses take the most direct route possible from sensory neurons to the cortex.

Myth or Fact? All human senses take the most direct route possible from sensory neurons to the cortex.

December 28, 2015 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, Cortex, Olfaction, olfactory, Relay, Senses, Smell, Stopover, Thalamus

Myth or Fact? An adult brain has enough myelin to stretch from New York to Tokyo.

December 21, 2015 knowingneurons 4 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Earth, myelin, Neuroscience

Myth or fact? Some neurotransmitters travel backwards across the synapse.

December 14, 2015March 22, 2016 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Axon, Hunger, Marijuana, neurotransmitter, Receptor, Retrograde, Synapse, THC

Myth or fact? A highly centralized nervous system is necessary for intelligent behaviors.

December 7, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Autonomous, Intelligence, Knowing Neurons, Nervous, Octopus, Tool

Myth or Fact? Axonal conduction delays and processing time prevent us from experiencing the world in "real time."

November 30, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Past, Perception, Time, Vision

Myth or Fact? The brain's energy consumption is small compared to other organs.

November 23, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Breathe, Education, Energy, Fact, Myth, Neuroscience, Oxygen

Myth or Fact? Synapses increase twentyfold during the first month of life.

November 16, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Connection, Development, Size, Synapse

Myth or Fact? Artists use their right brain significantly more than their left brain.

November 9, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Hemisphere, Left, Right

Myth or Fact? The mechanism by which caffeine keeps humans awake is a mystery.

November 2, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Adenosine, Awake, Caffeine, Receptor, Sleep

Myth or Fact? The brain forms inside-out.

October 26, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Development, Inside-out, Layers, Neurodevelopment, Trifle

Myth or Fact? The neurotransmitter serotonin is solely located in the brain.

October 19, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Gut, neurotransmitter, serotonin

Myth or Fact? The brain is impenetrable to many important drugs.

October 12, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, BBB, Blood-brain barrier, Bouncer, Drug

Myth or Fact? Cutting into the brain of an awake patient directly results in agonizing pain.

October 5, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Dura, Headache, Nociception, Nociceptor, Pain, Pia, Receptor, Skull

Myth or Fact? The brain region with the most neurons is responsible for motor coordination.

September 28, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Cerebellum, Motor, Movement, Walk

Myth or Fact? It would take ten human brains to match the energy consumption of one light bulb.

September 21, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Brain, Energy, Light bulb, Power, Watts

Myth or Fact? The capillaries of the brain are hundreds of miles long.

Myth or Fact? The capillaries of the brain are hundreds of miles long.

September 14, 2015 knowingneurons 0 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Blood, Brain, Capillaries, Knowing Neurons, Length, Oxygen

Myth or Fact? Spice receptors on your tongue allow you to taste hot food.

September 7, 2015 knowingneurons 1 Comment 52 Brain Facts, bitter, Knowing Neurons, Receptor, Salty, Sour, Spice, sweet, taste, Tongue

Myth or Fact? The number of neurons in the brain is comparable to the number of stars in our galaxy.

August 31, 2015 knowingneurons 2 Comments 52 Brain Facts, Galaxy, Knowing Neurons, Neuron