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25 years
What percentage of the human brain can we use/have access to? Is it possible to use 100% of the human brain?
Sep 7, 2014

Dr. Rania Mousa General Medicine
Actually we use 100% of our brains.The saying "Use it or Lose It" seems to apply to the nervous system.
During development many new synapses are formed. In fact, some synapses are eliminated later on in development.
This period of synaptic development and elimination goes on to "fine tune" the wiring of the nervous system.
Many studies have shown that if the input to a particular neural system is eliminated, then neurons in this system will not function properly.

This has been shown quite dramatically in the visual system: complete loss of vision will occur if visual information is prevented from stimulating the eyes (and brain) early in development.

some methods claims that a man uses only 10 % of brain which is not true ,It seems reasonable to suggest that if 90% of the brain was not used, then many neural pathways would degenerate.

However, this does not seem to be the case. On the other hand, the brains of young children are quite adaptable. The function of a damaged brain area in a young brain can be taken over by remaining brain tissue.

There are incredible examples of such recovery in young children who have had large portions of their brains removed to control seizures. Such miraculous recovery after extensive brain surgery is very unusual in adults.

It is well known that damage to a relatively small area of the brain, such as that caused by a stroke, may cause devastating disabilities. Certain neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's Disease, also affect only specific areas of the brain ,so any harm for any part of brain will cause major harm for the abilities depending on the area damaged .

Brain scans have shown that no matter what one is doing, brains are always active. Some areas are more active at any one time than others, but barring brain damage, there is no part of the brain that is absolutely not functioning.

Brain imaging (neuro-imaging): Technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow the activity of the living brain to be monitored. They reveal that even during sleep, all parts of the brain show some level of activity. Only in the case of serious damage does a brain have "silent" areas.

So this confirms that actually we are using 100% of the brain and simply we can't get rid of any part claiming it is useless .
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