why do we only use a small percentage of our brain?how can use it all?

Answer 1

I'm a neuroscientitst (I study the brain) and I hear this question all the time, and I have no idea how the myth perpetuates. I don't know how familiar you are with the concept of evolution (maybe you're American and were taught about creationism in school... cheap shot, only joking!) but basically we wouldn't have evolved our brain over time if we didn't use it. Brain scanning experiments and electrophysiology (stimulating and recording brain cell signals) all provide pretty hefty evidence that we use our whole brain. Try this for size http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html

Answer 2

This is a popular misconception!

Even though many mysteries of brain function persist, every part of the brain has a known function.

This misconception most likely arose from a misunderstanding of neurological research in the late 1800s or early 1900s when researchers either discovered that only about 10% of the neurons in the brain are firing at any given time or announced that they had only mapped the functions of 10% of the brain up to that time.

Another possible origin of the misconception is that only 10% of the cells in the brain are neurons; the rest are glial cells that, despite being involved in learning, do not function in the same way that neurons do.
If all of a person's neurons began firing at once he would not become smarter, but would instead suffer a seizure. In fact, studies have shown that the brains of more intelligent people are less active than the brains of less intelligent people when working on the same problems.

A less literal interpretation of the statement is valid. It can be reasonably claimed that most people only use a very small fraction of the cognitive potential of their brain, even though all individual brain neurons are busily working. Various cultural inventions enable humans to better utilize their cognitive potential, such as reading, education, problem solving, critical thinking, etc.

Answer 3

It's not that we only use a small percentage of our brains, it's that some choose to only use a minority of the brain.

Most of the human population grow to train for one job, or we grow to become parents and again one job. We learn the basic skills at school and we are taught similar during this spell of time to then become what I just said.

If you are speaking of using only a percentage of the brain educationally to progress intelligence then I'd agree with you but we are using the whole brain for your body to function.

We are capable of learning what ever we want, and there is no limit to what we can learn, *if we want to*. We allow the brain to be idle by routine, we limit ourselves by our routine life style but you only need to take a look around yahoo answers, the globe to see that many have shown that not all just use the minority=what we have been taught, and they continue to progress with the learning therefore using more than the small percentage of the brain :D:D

I very much doubt if we were to educate ourselves continously for every second of our lives we'd have learned to use the whole brain simply because there'd be more left unlearned.
To have used 'literally' the whole brain-you'd have to know everything there was to know

Answer 4

We actually do use our entire brain. Much of the mass of the brain itself is used for other purposes, either as supporting cells or structural components.

Answer 5

if we can use it all, we wouldn't need this body we occupy. We'd be one big living source of energy. And that's another reason we're still so damn primitive. If you put the earth's existence on a 12 hour clock, we only came into this world 5 minutes ago.

Answer 6

different bodily functions are controlled by different parts of the brain and we dont know what most of it does so we dont know if its being used or not

Answer 7

stay in the womb longer--i came out with a fuul set of teeth, and shoulder length hair.......read up on it....your sinuses arent even fully developed yet-you really are just dying the minute you breath air too soon....sorry.......maybe you should read up on it--its kind of depressing,

Answer 8

this is really a serious question,i think we cant feel how great our brains are.when we know that how great it is,infact we are using all of it. (i looked at your question not biological)

Answer 9

w a lemon pepper sauce and a nice ciante wine.

Answer 10

i think i read somewhere that thats a myth. we actually use most of our brain. apparently most of us dont use it that effectively however.