1Did you know that every time you're watching a new video,
2it's possible thanks to the world's most powerful supercomputer?
3And I'm not talking about your laptop or phone here,
4I mean your own brain.
5Let's take a journey in there to find out how it works.
6But first, I'll need a proper kind of equipment.
7This machine here will... hey, what?
8Oh my, looks like I've turned myself into a sound wave.
9Oh well, whatever works!
10And that's my friend down there,
11so we'll get to see what happens in his brain.
12Interesting!
13The outer ear catches the sound wave, and the journey begins.
14It's pretty tight in here, in the ear canal.
15Ugh.. Let me squeeze in... There we go!
16Next stop, the eardrum, it's about half the size of a dime.
17Oh, what was that?
18The eardrum starts vibrating, I know that feeling so well!
19It's like when your neighbors party so hard you can hear it at the other end of the street.
20Moving on to the middle ear...
21Things are getting too loud here!
22And this must be the cochlea.
23That's Greek for "snail," by the way because, duh, that's what it looks like!
24It's pretty wet in here, it's all filled with liquid, and it's getting stormy.
25What are all those cute hairs?
26There are so many of them!
27Oh, I feel ticklish...
28They move and bend, and then the real magic happens.
29Vibrations turn into nerve impulses here.
30Woohoo! Things are getting crazy fast here!
31We're traveling down the auditory nerve.
32Next stop, the brain.
33I think I need to put my shades on;
34it's bright and sparkly in here.
35All those trees look like they've come straight out of a sci-fi movie.
36What if I touch it?
37Oh-ho, it's like a lightning!
38Now, these are my fellow neurons,
39there are about a hundred billion of them,
40about as many as the stars in the Milky Way.
41You get most of them at birth,
42but as you get older, your brain keeps producing new ones.
43Wow, that was bright! And again!
44Neurons send somewhere between 5 to 50 messages every second.
45More on that later, we have places to go!
46There are hundreds of neuron types and three main classes.
47Sensory neurons are like little secret service agents,
48they collect information from your sense organs, like eyes and ears,
49and deliver it to your central nervous system.
50These here are motor neurons,
51they're the big bosses in your body.
52They get information from other neurons and deliver it to your muscles, organs, and glands.
53So basically, they're telling you what to do!
54All the rest are interneurons,
55they collect and receive information from other neurons.
56This action is never-ending!
57It's like a huge chemical factory.
58Neurons work so hard they produce enough energy to light up a low-voltage LED bulb.
59Hey, just try it!
60Yeah, they did it!
61The speeds in here are crazy,
62up to 250 miles per hour, like sports cars.
63But let's slow down for a moment.
64I want to know what happens here.
65Welcome to the cerebrum,
66the largest part of the brain, or around 85%.
67So glad I never skipped anatomy class!
68The outer layer of the cerebrum is made of gray matter,
69the rest of the core is made of white matter.
70Does it matter?
71Yes, it does!
72The cerebrum interprets your senses of vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.
73You can feel different emotions and learn new things thanks to it.
74Did you know your brain has unlimited storage capacity?
75So that's what all these folds and grooves here are for.
76Okay, enough with the cerebrum.
77The next highlight on the itinerary today is the cerebellum,
78also known as the "little brain."
79It's indeed way smaller than the cerebrum,
80but not any less important, of course.
81Careful! That was one rough turn!
82Your little brain receives info from the sensory systems and the spinal cord
83and is in charge of the motor movements.
84So thanks to it, you can walk without falling,
85have good posture, and even speak!
86It also helps you concentrate and keep emotions under control.
87That differs person to person, of course.
88Are you mostly calm, or is it easy to freak you out?
89Let me know in the comment section below!
90We still have places to go, so let's keep moving.
91Neurons here come in all shapes and sizes
92but all have three basic parts:
93there's the cell body, the long tail called axon,
94and dendrite that looks like tree branches if you zoom in on it,
95neurons receive most of their information thanks to the dendrites.
96Let's hang on here and watch, that's quite a show!
97Information transmission in progress!
98Just one neuron can't do much by itself,
99so they work together as teams.
100They talk in their secret language of electrical and chemical signals.
101Ooh, did you see that little light just go out?
102Not all messages can go through,
103neurons sort of learn the relevant from the irrelevant.
104And when you do something again and again, so the same signal is going through,
105the message gets even faster and is more likely to reach the goal.
106One more thing that makes some parts of your brain more active is love.
107It lights up in MRI scan.
108Hold on, I think because of all those love talks, we missed our next stop.
109Let's go back a bit.
110Nope, not what we were looking for...
111Hmm, so easy to get lost in this maze.
112Maybe it's here...
113We're looking for something really small and almond-shaped.
114Yay! Meet the amygdala, everyone!
115It's on our must-see list today because it plays a super important role.
116It handles your emotions like fear and sadness
117and helps you keep your temper under control.
118And it's like a scrapbook for your memories of events and emotions.
119It stores them so you can recognize similar things in the future.
120Alright, what's next?
121Oh, that must be the brainstem.
122It's in charge of communication between the brain and the rest of your body.
123And you should also thank it for the things you do automatically:
124breathing, keeping your heartbeat regular, digesting food, and other basics.
125The brainstem is connected directly to the spinal cord,
126that's the central highway of your nervous system.
127Oh, what's that?
128Traffic police?
129Hey, I wasn't speeding, officer, I promise!
130Everyone is crazy fast in here.
131This highway has lanes moving in both directions, carrying messages to and from the brain.
132Hey Steve, what are you doing?
133Don't you see that door right in your face?
134Do something, brain!
135You have to send a signal to his muscles.
136Okay, I have to save him. To the rescue!
137Phew, made it!
138I'm human again, and that phone is still ringing.
139How long have I been away for?
140Just so you know, it looks like this all happened in one thousandth of a second.