Our brain is a fascinating organ

Our brain is an organ only representing 2 percent of our body mass, about 1.4 kg. However, it uses 20% of our energy. It consists of nerve cells called neurons and connections between the nerve cells, called synapses. There are about 20 billion neurons. Every single nerve cell can make up to 10,000 connections with other nerve cells. We have two cerebral hemispheres, a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. There is a rough division between the tasks. But they differ between every person. Our brain can be reprogrammed,for example after an accident where parts of the brain had been destroyed or had to be removed. In general,the following tasks are linked to the cerebral hemispheres:

Comparisons are often made between the brain and the performance of a computer. It it true that our brain needs about 15-20 watts at a comparable computing power. A modern high-performance computer would need about 1.5 megawatts. A computer therefore needs a 1000 times more energy than our brain. There are computers which are able to beat human beings, for example in certain fields like chess. However, they are not as complex and adaptable as human beings. Not to mention the energy demand.