IUBio

"Humans only use a fraction of their brain...Reply"

Richard L. Hall rhall at webmail.uvi.edu
Fri May 18 08:04:11 EST 2001


Thanks for the comprehensive review and radio - computer analogy.

It always amazes me that anyone gives any credence to humans having 
large volumes of unused CNS.  Nobody asked the rats: What part of 
your unused brain are you willing to have removed?   I doubt any 
human would be willing to spare even a thimble full of brain on the 
assertion that it was not needed.

rlh


>Years ago (maybe 12 by now) I posted a message asking this question
>on a fledgling neuropsych listserver. I asked where such an idea
>originated from and received a few answers, none of which directly
>answered the question.
>    One answer from McCarthy of AI fame was that in 1939 or so (he
>was not sure), he read the famous myth in a self help book.  At
>least two others suggested Wm. James and Karl Lashley as possible
>sources.
>    Lashley's work with rats and cortical lesions seems the most
>"logical" source if I had to invent one, but his work on this
>subject for many reasons (as is the myth) is odd because he seemed
>to have ignored the cortical literature arising from the 60 years
>previous to his (ca.) 1929 Science review paper.
>    Anyway, much work in the last 50 years tends to support cortical
>functional localization which Lashley apparently ignored. The myth then
>arises, in my interpretation of an urban legend, from studies
>based on mistaken notions of the homogeneity of the majority of
>cortex.
>    However, one can take this statement de novo and ask what
>does it mean? I wonder if the question even has meaning?
>
>Is it similar to "A radio only operates at a miniscule of efficiency
>because it is only receiving one station at a time?" or
>"Computers are inefficient because many of the virtual switches
>are closed at a given instant of time?" 
>    I think the %10 question is invalid at least because it does
>not specify the nature of neural information. Is information only
>conveyed by active neurons? Surely not! Just think about any
>topographic system requires the "inactivity" of most neurons to
>permit specification of a specific item within the topography
>(and I use "inactivity" to mean uncorrelated, not silent).
>    Not to belabor the point, and I sure anticipate both cogent and
>flamed responses, despite the ubiquitous "knowledge" that humans
>use only 10-15% of their brains, that knowledge is bogus.
>
>Bill Saidel
>Biology, Rutgers University
>saidel at crab.rutgers.edu

-- 
Richard L. Hall, Ph.D.
Comparative Animal Physiologist

University of the Virgin Islands
2 John Brewers Bay
St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. 00802

340-693-1386
340-693-1385 FAX

rhall at uvi.edu

"Live life on the edge...the view is always better"  rlh

---




More information about the Neur-sci mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net