• Question: what is the weirdest thing about the brain in your opinion

    Asked by anon-258248 to Laura on 1 Jul 2020.
    • Photo: Laura Jastrzab

      Laura Jastrzab answered on 1 Jul 2020:

      Oooh, there are so many weird things about the brain. Perhaps the weirdest is that it is the seat of our consciousness (or our awareness of ourselves, others, and our surroundings). Our brains coordinate sensory inputs and outputs to make sense of the world and it’s essential for learning. When you stop to think about how complex the brain has to be to integrate all of that information and produce a response – and how unique each of us are – it’s pretty incredible and quite weird.

Comments

  • stevethomas commented on :

    This is not my field of expertise but I’m with Laura – consciousness. I consider it as mysterious as the origin of the Universe – two big questions for which science hasn’t produced satisfactory answers yet.

  • Photo: Martin

    Martin commented on :

    Obviously *loads* of things about the brain are fascinating and strange. Difficult to pick one out. I guess I would single out the fact that loads of organisms exhibit complex and even ‘clever’ behaviours with relatively few neurons and hardly any centralised ‘brain’ at all. We don’t really understand how an animal with only a few, or a few hundred, brain cells manages to move, hide, hunt, mate, and even learn new things when tested in the laboratory. If you were looking for an area of study with huge potential this wouldn’t be a bad choice.