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New Imaging Method Reveals Brain Connections
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, applying a state-of-the-art imaging system to brain-tissue samples from mice, have been able to quickly and accurately locate and count the myriad connections between nerve cells in unprecedented detail, as well as to capture and catalog those connections' surprising variety. A typical healthy human brain contains about 200 billion nerve cells, or neurons, linked to one another via hundreds of trillions of tiny contacts called synapses. It is at these synapses that an electrical impulse traveling along one neuron is relayed to another, either enhancing or inhibiting the likelihood that the second nerve will fire an impulse of its own. One neuron may make as many as tens of thousands of synaptic contacts with other neurons, said Stephen Smith, PhD, professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of a paper describing the study, to be published Nov. 18 in Neuron."
We are already using the 100% of our brain. For something as expensive to maintain as the brain, having 90% of unused area is an evolutionary disadvantage. Maybe we could give it a better use, for some value of better, but is not unused right now.
Depends on the definition of "use." If you mean firing all at once, then yes, epileptics have that issue. However, just because a neuron is not firing does not mean that it is not doing something and/or receiving signals. BTW neurons don't just receive signals from other neurons, they receive signals from other tissue in the form of hormones.