Some of these are actual facts, some are not.
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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed
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Sorry, but you don’t really have a ton of ~brain power~ just sat there waiting to be unlocked. Over a day you use most of your brain. In fact, when you try to do nothing your brain ends up using more energy than when you do some conscious activities.
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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed
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“This notion is so vague as to be virtually meaningless,” writes Christian Jarrett in Great Myths of the Brain (Wiley, 2014). “We all use our left or right brain hemispheres to different degrees depending on what mental activities we’re currently engaged in.”
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For years the consensus was that once you lost brain cells as an adult, they were gone. But that’s not actually true.
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In some parts of the human brain, bigger does equal better. But the connections between parts of the brain are just as important, if not more so.
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Binge drinking or chronic alcohol abuse might harm your brain, but moderate drinking won’t kill your brain cells.
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And that fat is really important.
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There are actually about 86 billion.
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It doesn’t have any pain receptors. Handy for those undergoing brain surgery while they’re awake.
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Your brain doesn’t look like an adult brain until at least your early 20s.
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I’m not saying that you’re dim, but…
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A 2009 review “found no evidence that structured cognitive intervention programs delay or slow progression to Alzheimer’s disease in healthy elderly.” If you want to know more about how brain training claims stack up to the evidence, read this open letter from the scientific community.
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“There’s little doubt that brain chemistry is an important aspect of depression and anxiety,” writes Christian Jarrett in Great Myths of the Brain (Wiley, 2014). “However, there is no clear evidence that these mental disorders are caused by a chemical imbalance in the straightforward way implied by the myth.” That doesn’t mean “chemical imbalances” have nothing at all to do with depression, but it’s not fair to say they are the cause.
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Can You Tell Whether These Brain “Facts” Are True Or False?
- Not great!
The bad news is that you don’t have masses of unused brain power to tap into to get this score higher. The good news is that you hopefully learnt something new while taking this quiz!
- Getting there!
You might have been taken in by some common brain myths in the past, but now you’re on a path to enlightenment.
- Congratulations!
You’re well on your way to being a brain expert! Keep up the good work and you’ll be a perfect brain myth busting machine in no time.
- Amazing!
You know your brain inside out and no advertiser could ever trick you with neurobollocks. If you had a superpower, if would be busting brain myths. Keep up the good work!
