# 10% of the brain

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-brain/517509>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 14, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-brain/517509 "2009-11-14T01:27:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-brain/517509/1 "2009-11-14T01:27:28Z")

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I know that “we only use 10% of the brain” is a myth, but is it accurate that only 10% of neurons are firing at any given time?

I have also been told the very dubious statistic that “normally we only use 10% of the brain at a time, but on LSD we use much more / almost the entire brain”. I have no doubt this is complete nonsense, but I’m wondering if anyone has a cite.

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**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-brain/517509/2 "2009-11-14T02:44:49Z")

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Please note that I’m in no way a brain care specialist 🙂 Here’s what I gather, and I would appreciate corrections and refinements from people who actually know what they’re talking about.

As far as the evidence goes, it’s more or less true that we don’t use all of our brain all the time. When we’re thinking about mathematics, we use different parts of our brain than when we’re looking at pictures of people’s faces. We also have some parts of our brain that are active all the time just keeping us alive -with the breathing and the heart beating and standing upright and all that. What that practically means is that some parts of our brains are specialized, and aren’t used all the time. What you cannot conclude from that, is that activating the whole brain would give us super smarts. It would probably lead to us seeing faces where there aren’t any, and thinking up mathmatical solutions to problems that don’t have any. If that sounds like an hallucinogenic trip, then you may very well be right.

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**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-brain/517509/3 "2009-11-14T03:24:13Z")

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[The Master said:](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/640/do-we-really-use-only-10-percent-of-our-brains)

> [@Cecil Adams](#):
>
> Obviously not all the brain is in use at once. At any given time about 5 percent of the neurons are active, the only sense in which the old saw is even close to true. (Good thing, too, or you’d have the equivalent of a grand mal seizure, a mental electrical storm in which all the neurons fire continually.) The parts of the brain are highly specialized, and some areas are more active than others depending on the task at hand. But all the parts do something, and it seems safe to say that over time you use pretty much all your brain, just as most people use all their muscles to some degree.

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**Author:** ![Claude\_Remains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@Claude\_Remains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claude_Remains)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-brain/517509/4 "2009-11-14T05:01:04Z")

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[Acid trip 1](http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/html/acidtrip1.html) This is wonderfull!