Do you know what’s the most complex thing in the world? Here’s a hint: It’s weighs 3 pounds and is constantly at work. It’s definitely whirring away right now while you’re trying to guess the answer.

With almost 100 billion neurons, each as complex as the Hadron Collider, the human brain is amazingly complex. The brain is a regulating entity routing instructions to multiple cells within seconds. Even a simple task like picking up a can of soda or drawing a circle can be considered a miracle with the way our brain functions. If you were to damage a brain tissue it would seriously affect your ability to feel different emotions, appreciate nature, understand music or see colors. Although the primary functions of the brain are well known to humans and healthcare experts, science is still not completely sure about the way we process thoughts, emotions and actions using this organ.

The brain’s capability to transform a specific experience into a relatable element to be stored for later leads to learning. The brain extracts feedback from the senses and stores the input as a code without any conscious attempt from our end. This helps us hark back to the experience to benefit from it and learn through a seamless process.

LANGUAGE

Did you know babies can learn two languages at the same time? Baby brains process the languages being spoken around them much better than adult brains. Scientists these days are working on investigating the different brain zones responsible for processing the language. The reassembly of these zones that process language information is carried out in different areas of the brain like the middle temporal, inferior parietal, broca and the wericke.

Once a word is heard, the incoming sound is stored as an electric signal and decoded by the auditory cortex in the ear where neurons pull out auditory parts from the signal. The temporo-frontal networks in the left hemisphere analyze the extracted parts for classification of words and match them with related themes. The analysis of the sentence by the right hemisphere is the final step in the process.

These facilitate our ability for abstract reasoning, insight, planning and concentration.

With the range of functions performed by the brain, it’s no wonder that it burns 70% of the body’s glucose and almost 16 ounces of blood pass through the brain every minute.

As physicist Michio Kaku said, “The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to ten thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe”.