5 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Brain
From the placebo effect to neuron generation, your gray matter has surprising superpowers
There’s a lot about the brain we still don’t know. In fact, just this week neuroscientists discovered what they’re calling “zombie” brain cells, which only turn on after you die. (They are glial cells, and they are supposed to clean up the mess after a stroke or other trauma — they get to work immediately following death, even if their work is ultimately futile).
The space between your ears turns out to be almost as elusive as the space between planets. One neurosurgeon, Robert White, actually considered himself a brain “astronaut.” Your brain is indeed up to something all the time, in often surprising ways. Here are five of the most astounding.
1. You can survive with only half your brain.
The brain presents us with a curious paradox. It’s responsible for all we think, all we do, and much of what we are. It is necessary to our every function; we might even say it’s what makes us us. Yet we can seemingly get by on just half a brain — or even less. How do we explain this mystery?
The first human hemispherectomy was performed in 1923 at Johns Hopkins Hospital, when surgeon Walter Edward Dandy set…
