Preschooler

Facts About Human Brain and senses

Facts about human brain and senses

Every child is curious. They ask several questions and some of them may even amaze you at times. But it is up to you to provide them with the right kind of information. This is their age to grow and develop into a smarter and more aware human being. We have collected some amazing facts about the human brain and senses that you can share with your child. It will help to grow interested in your child when you tell them. This may even make them an outstanding student in their classroom!

The Human brain is one organ in the body that is highly important for the whole body to function. Similarly, the senses that a human have are of great amazement. Some of the facts given below are sure to make them smarter.

Facts about the Human Brain 

  • The human brain is like a powerful computer that stores our memory and controls how we as humans think and react. It has evolved over time and features some incredibly intricate parts that scientists still struggle to understand.
  • The brain is the center of the human nervous system, controlling our thoughts, movements, memories and decisions.
  • With evolution, the human brain has become more and more complicated, many of its interesting properties are still not well understood by scientists.
  • The brain contains billions of nerve cells that send and receive information around the body.
  • The human brain is over three times as big as the brain of other mammals that are of similar body size.
  • Each side of the brain interacts largely with just one half of the body. But for reasons that are not yet fully understood. The interaction is with opposite sides, the right side of the brain interacts with the left side of the body, and vice versa.
  • The largest part of the human brain is called the cerebrum. Other important parts include corpus callosum, cerebral cortex, thalamus, cerebellum, hypothalamus, hippocampus and brain stem.
  • The human brain is protected by the skull (cranium), a protective casing made up of 22 bones that are joined together.
  • The brain of an adult human weighs around 3 pounds (1.5 kg). Although it makes up just 2% of the body’s weight, it uses around 20% of its energy.
  • The brain is suspended in Cerebrospinal fluid, effectively floating in the liquid that acts as both a cushion to physical impact and a barrier to infections.
  • Diseases of the brain include Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. Diseases such as these can limit the normal function of the human brain.
  • Most strokes result from a blood clot in the brain that blocks the local blood supply, this causes the damage or destruction of nearby brain tissue and a wide range of stroke symptoms.

Facts about Senses

  • Senses are a collection of sensory organs or cells in the body that respond to particular physical occurrences. They send information collected to various parts of the brain where the data is interpreted and an appropriate response signal returned.
  • The exact number of senses humans have is disputed due to the various definitions of what a ‘sense’ is. However, it is widely agreed that there are five main human senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.
  • The five main sense organs are your eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.
  • Sight or vision is the ability of the eye to detect and focus on images of visible light with photoreceptors found in the retina of the eye. Electrical nerve impulses are generated for different colors, hues and brightness.
  • The two types of photoreceptors are rods and cones. Rods are sensitive to light, while cones identify different colors. It is generally agreed that these two receptors are two senses, one sense for color and one for brightness, which together make up the overall sense of sight.
  • Hearing is a sense that detects the vibrations of sound. Mechanoreceptors in the inner ear in the form of tiny bones and hair-like fibers, turn motion or sound waves from the air into electrical nerve pulses that the brain can then interpret.
  • The sense of touch is activated by neural receptors such as hair follicles found in the skin, but also pressure receptors on the tongue and throat.
  • The taste of food, is detected by sensory cells called taste buds located on top of the tongue. There are five basic tastes: sweet, bitter, sour, salty and savoury.
  • Smell, like taste, is deemed to be a chemical sense. There are hundreds of olfactory receptors or sensory cells in our nasal passage, each of which will bind itself to a different molecular smell feature.
  • Around 80% of what we think is taste is actually smell. Flavor, is a combination of taste and smell perception. Test this yourself by holding your nose closed the next time you eat something, can you taste it very well? Chances are you can’t.
  • Other perceived human senses are debatable. But generally include, the ability to detect temperature, pain, balance and kinesthetic (which is the relative positions of our body parts – test this sense by closing your eyes and touching your nose with a finger).
  • There are many internal body stimuli that may be perceived as senses too. For example, chemoreceptors for detecting salt and carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood and stretch receptors in the lungs which control our breathing rate.
  • Compared to animals, humans have a quite weak sense of smell.
  • Animals have differences in how their receptors sense the world around them, for example dogs and sharks have a terrific sense of smell. While cats can see very well in dim light.
  • Some animals have receptors in places that seem very unusual to us. Flies and butterflies, for example have taste organs on their feet.  So they can taste anything they land on and catfish have taste organs across their entire bodies.
  • Other animals have sense receptors we can only dream off. Some snakes have sensory organs that can detect infrared light, birds and bees can see ultraviolet light. While bats and dolphins use sonar sounds to interpret their surroundings.
  • Certain fish and rays can detect changes in nearby electrical fields. Many bird species use the Earth’s magnetic fields to determine the direction they are flying.

These facts about human brain and senses will be sufficient for all the times that your child needed answers to all sorts of questions.  Here is your chance to get back and give the right information.

Also read – Space related facts for your child

Facts about different fruits for your child

Facts about the Sun, Moon and the Stars

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