Opinion, arguments & analyses from the editors of Scientific American Observations HomeAboutContact Lucy Film Hinges on Brain Capacity Myth By Kate Wong | July 25, 2014 | 2 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/07/25/lucy-film-hinges-on-brain-capacity-myth/#respond The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. Scarlett Johansson plays a woman who unlocks her brain power in the movie Lucy. Image: Universal Pictures On July 25, French film writer/director Luc Besson’s action thriller Lucy opens in theaters nationwide. The premise is that the title character, played by Scarlett Johansson, is exposed to a drug that unlocks her mind, giving her superhuman powers of cognition. Themovie production notes http://www.lucymovie.com/pdf/lucy_production_notes.pdf[PDF] elaborate: “…It has long been hypothesized that human beings only use a small percentage of our cerebral capacity at any given time. For centuries, speculative science has postulated what would occur if mankind could actually evolve past that limit. Indeed, what would happen to our consciousness and newfound abilities if every region of the brain was concurrently active? If each one of the 86 billion densely packed neurons in a human brain fired at once, could that person become, in fact, superhuman?” The notion that we humans have massive reserves of gray matter just sitting there waiting to be summoned into service has obvious appeal, but there is no scientific evidence to support it. And what’s odd about Besson’s reliance on this myth is that, according to the production notes, he allegedly set out to make the storyline scientifically plausible: “Although Besson believed that the idea of expanding one’s brain capacity made for tremendous action-thriller material, he was particularly intent on grounding—at least in part—Lucy in scientific fact.” Apparently he missed or ignored the many scientists who would have surely informed him that the idea that we use only a small portion of our brain (10 percent, the story usually goes) is wrong. As Barry L. Beyerstein of the Brain Behavior Laboratory at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver explained http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-really-use-only-10/ in a piece for Scientific American: “…the brain, like all our other organs, has been shaped by natural selection. Brain tissue is metabolically expensive both to grow and to run, and it strains credulity to think that evolution would have permitted squandering of resources on a scale necessary to build and maintain such a massively underutilized organ. Moreover, doubts are fueled by ample evidence from clinical neurology. Losing far less than 90 percent of the brain to accident or disease has catastrophic consequences. What is more, observing the effects of head injury reveals that there does not seem to be any area of the brain that can be destroyed by strokes, head trauma, or other manner, without leaving the patient with some kind of functional deficit. Likewise, electrical stimulation of points in the brain during neurosurgery has failed so far to uncover any dormant areas where no percept, emotion or movement is elicited by applying these tiny currents….” Neither do we regularly use only a little bit of the brain at a time, as science writer Robynne Boyd reported http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/ in a piece for Scientific American. She quoted neurologist Barry Gordon of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine: “”It turns out though, that we use virtually every part of the brain, and that [most of] the brain is active almost all the time,” Gordon adds. “Let’s put it this way: the brain represents three percent of the body’s weight and uses 20 percent of the body’s energy.” Yet just because we are already using our entire brain does not mean we can’t enhance its powers. Exercise and diet can boost cognitive performance http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/six-ways-to-boost-brainpower/. And some researchers think cognitive training can make people smarter http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-design-exercises-that-make-you-smarter/. As for cognitive-enhancing drugs, the few that are available, such as Ritalin and Provigil, are quite the opposite of the compound Lucy is exposed to in the film. Rather than stimulating all of the brain’s neurons to sense everything in one’s environment, these drugs work to help people zero in. The results are a mixed bag, however, as my colleague Gary Stix has observed http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/07/are-we-as-smart-or-dumb-as-we-can-get/: “Most of today’s cognitive enhancers improve our ability to focus—but most benefits accrue to those with attention deficits. They allow the child with ADHD to learn the multiplication tables, but for those with average attention spans or better, these drugs can sometimes usher in comic mishaps. Instead of cramming for the [Chinese Proficiency Test], as you might have intended, you are liable to get sidetracked into the most mundane of trivialities: you might get up from your textbooks for a drink of water and spend the next two days replacing the leaky plumbing in your kitchen sink. The focus of attention ‘sticks’ to whatever is in front of your face and a friend with a verbal crowbar has to pry you away.” ------------------------------------ http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/mind-read/lucy_is_wrong_we_use Nature.com "Lucy" is Wrong; We Use Way More Than 10% of Our Brains "It is estimated most human beings only use ten percent of their brain's capacity," lectures Professor Norman, played by actor Morgan Freeman, in the trailer for the new thriller Lucy. "Imagine if we could access 100 percent. Interesting things begin to happen." I know I haven't earned my Ph.D. yet, Professor, but I beg to differ. You see, we all access 100% of our brains every day. And we don't have to be telekinetic or memorize an entire deck of cards to do it. In the film, which opens next Friday, Scarlett Johansson's character Lucy is forced to work as a drug smuggler in a Taiwanese mob. The drug they've implanted into her body leaks into her system, allowing her to "access 100%" of her brain. Among other things, Lucy can move objects with her mind, choose not to feel pain, and memorize copious amounts of information. In a way, the idea that we only use 10% of our brains is rather inspiring. It may motivate us to try harder or tap into some mysterious, intact reservoir of creativity and potential. There are even products http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-90-Potential-Leadership/dp/060980880X) that promise to unlock that other 90%. As ludicrous as the claim is, however, 2/3 of the public and half of science teachers still believe the myth to be true. The notion is so widespread that when University College London neuroscientist Sophie Scott attended a first aid course, her instructor assured the class that head injuries weren't dangerousbecause "90% of the brain [doesn't] do anything." How did this misconception come about, anyway? We may be able to track its earliest roots back to psychologist William James, who wrote in his 1907 text The Energies of Men that "we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources." I tend to agree with this sentiment when I spend my evenings on the couch watching reality television, but, of course, James didn't intend to lend credence to this "10% myth." But someone else did, Lowell Thomas, in his foreword to Dale Carnegie's 1936 book How To Win Friends and Influence People, reinterpreted the statement and, it seems, sprinkld in a few of his own ideas. "Professor William James of Harvard," Thomas wrote, used to say that the average person develops only 10 percent of his latent mental ability." Here's the thing: the brain has rapidly tripled its original size across two million years of human evolution. Despite only accounting for 2% of our body weight, the brain gobbles up a whopping 20% of our daily energy intake http://books.google.com/books?id=j05OlJ_y58YC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=Brown,+Guy.+The+Energy+of+Life.+New+York:+Free+Press,+1999.&source=bl&ots=MzCScMYHSX&sig=JoGf36E-TwvOEfLSWBOG_0wAQ5Q&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XYLFU9_DGK_fsATvlIKoBA&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false). Our brains are also remarkably efficient, having evolved gyri which have dramatically increased our cortical surface-area-to-total volume ratio relative to other species. The "we only use 10% of our brains" claim would mean that we're effectively evolving in the opposite direction-and that we're doing this very quickly. Another obvious way we know that we're using more than 10% of our brain at once is through approaches like functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography. fMRI and PET are imaging techniques that reveal areas of relatively high brain activity in real time. Imaging studies tell us that not only are many brain areas recruited when performing even the simplest of tasks,like watching a movie http://www.ncigt.org/pages/Research_Projects/FunctionalMRI), but that the activity between these areas is extremely dynamic. Plus, the "use it or lose it" adage seems to hold particularly true in brain health. A 2012 study http://stevenslab.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/dori-neuron-paper.pdf) by Schafer and colleagues at Harvard found that neural immune cells called microglia can remove idle, but otherwise healthy, synapses (connections) between brain cells. If we were only regularly using only 10% of our brains at any given time, we might all be prone to cerebral atrophy, resembling patients with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. The "10% myth" may have been perpetuated by something that _is_ true. Despite the brain having nearly 100 billion neurons, this cell type is vastly outnumbered by another: glial cells. Glial ("glue") cells are responsible for maintaining homeostasis, providing structural support, insulating neurons with myelin, and removing pathogens and debris. The actual ratio of glial cells to neurons is disputed http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/06/13/know-your-neurons-what-is-the-ratio-of-glia-to-neurons-in-the-brain/, although many texts claim that it may be roughly 10:1. In other words, neurons are only 10% of our entire brain. Think about yourself right now. Are you engaging your muscles to sit yourself upright? Using your hand to scroll your computer mouse (or thumb on your mobile device)? Perhaps you're eating something? Listening to music? Breathing? Rest assured, you're using more than 10% of your brain right now. You may have played God in a movie, Morgan Freeman, but clearly you need a primer on how your most incredible creation-the brain-functions! -- Originally published at The Conversation UK. Lucy’s Based on Bad Science Wired Magazine BY ANGELA WATERCUTTER http://www.wired.com/author/awatercutter/ 07.23.14 | 6:30 AM | Luc Besson (left) directs Scarlett Johansson in Lucy. Jessica Forde/Universal Pictures Luc Besson’s Lucy is based on a lie. The general premise is that a young woman named Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) gets abducted by a gang in Taipei and forced to carry a bag of drugs in her abdomen. But when the bag bursts, the drug gives her access to the 90 percent of her brain that most of us never use, making her superhuman. The idea that we only use 10 percent of our brains, however, is a myth—a fact more than a few recent stories recently have taken pride in pointing out. The writer/director, in turn, would like to remind them it’s fiction. “It’s not true,” Besson says. “The good thing with movies is that you mix up everything and then in the end it looks real.” There are a few more true tidbits in the film for science buffs, though. Like, for example, the fact that Lucy is named after the skeleton http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/al-288-1 of the Australopithecus afarensis found in 1974 that is our most famous early human ancestor http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060920-lucy.html. WIRED got on the phone with Besson to ask him about neuroscience and some of Lucy‘s other secrets. Besson Knew the ’10 Percent’ Figure Was Wrong, But Used It Anyway Although it gets bandied around a bit, the idea that we only use 10 percent of our brains is a scientific myth http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/. Still, the brain does have billions of neurons processing a lot of data that we’re basically in the dark about. “The numbers of communication per second is absolutely phenomenal,” Besson says. “And we have no access to this information. So it was very easy to me to say, ‘What happens if one day we have access to our information—if our brain suddenly makes that connection, and then we can have access to it? We could change our blood pressure; we could change everything.” Lucy Is Intentionally Out of Order So That the Science Makes Sense The opening of Lucy shows scenes of cell division and prehistoric wildlife intercut with the eponymous heroine being forced into ferrying drugs. Initially, it seems a little out of place, but more than an hour later Besson ties it all things together. “I wanted to de-structure the storytelling, because I wanted the people to be ready at the end to believe something unbelievable,” Besson says. “If I was too straightforward, without cheetahs, without cells, without anything, it would be like a thriller and then the end would be weird. So I needed to prep the audience from the beginning, like ‘You have to be ready for everything.’”
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