The Cerebral Cortex
The outermost structure of your brain - A tissue of awesome
The surface area of the cerebral cortex of a human brain
is approximately 2,500cm2.
It all fits in our heads because it's folded to maximize the surface.
The Cerebral Cortex plays an important role in much of
what makes us human.
Thought Memory
Language Attention
It is also called Grey Matter!
Because it has a very light grey color and to emphasize the contrast to white matter.
Neurons
Neurons are very important cells of the brain that respond to all the information we are confronted with.
Information
comes in at Dendrites and goes out through the Axon
* No, neurons don't have eyes and a mouth, but I couldn't resits...
The human brain contains approximately 80 BILLION neurons.
Each of them is connected to up to 200 000 other neurons.
If you laid out all your neurons it would go to the sun 330 times!
Synapses
Synapses are the pathways that connect brain cells, or neurons.
They allow neurons to communicate and form networks.
This is how information is connected across our brains.
There are ~100 - 10 000 synapses per Neuron.
Each mm3 of the brain contains ~ 300 MILLION synapses
Although you cannot see synapses you sure can "feel" them!
A great example of feeling your synapses is when you drink alcohol. Synapses get altered and it affects how information is processed in your brain. And that is why you didn't manage to make sense last time when you were drunk ;-)
Vesicles
Synaptic vesicles store chemicals called Neurotransmitters that are released across synapses.
Vesicles are ~50-100 nanometers big.
A sheet of paper is around 100 000 nanometers thick
That was a no-brainer, wasn't it?
I hope you liked it and it was somehow educational & fun for you. I also would love to hear your thoughts and feedback, please don't hesitate to contact me on twitter: @patrickwied
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The Scale of the Human Brain
An interactive journey through the depth of the human brain
