Q: What is your favorite mind-blowing fact about the brain?

A: I have so many favorites it is difficult to choose. Here’s one of them. The human brain is said to contain about 85 or 86 billion neurons. That is a mind-blowing number in itself. If 7 billion people live on Planet Earth, it would take all the people on 12 planets just like earth to equal the number of neurons in the brain. All in a little organ that weighs only about three pounds and in adulthood is the size of your two fists put together! It makes sense when a researcher says: The human brain is the most amazing piece of biological real estate in the known universe.

I suppose the corollary to this would be that the developing brain—during gestation—creates the mind. We can “think” because of the neurons in the mind. Once the brain develops and creates the mind, after birth they both continue to grow. As some point in the process of maturity, the mind can now tell the brain what to do! My favorite metaphor for this is: Vehicles create traffic. The traffic now can impede the vehicles.