The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps. Tony Buzan

extends into the full area of your forehead.

      Functions: Organization. Memory. Understanding. Communication. Creativity. Mind Mapping! Decision making. Speech. Music. Other specific functions include the full range of the ‘left/right brain’ cortical skills discussed in The ‘Left and Right’ Brain.

      Interesting facts:

      1 Your cerebrum is by far the largest part of your brain.

      2 The cerebrum is covered by that evolutionarily magical one-eighth-inch thick, amazingly corrugated layer of nerve cells known as the cerebral cortex. It is the nature of our particular cortex that identifies you as human.

      3 The two cerebral hemispheres are connected by a fabulously intricate network of nerve fibres called the corpus callosum; these 300 million nerve fibres shuttle information back and forward between the two hemispheres.

      DID YOU KNOW THAT…?

       Since the beginning of time there have been over 90 billion humans born into this world, each one astoundingly different from all the others?

       The human brain contains a million million neurons or nerve cells?

       Brain cells are so tiny that you could fit 100 hundred of them onto a single pinhead?

       Each of your brain cells is more powerful than a standard personal computer?

       If you lined up all of your brain cells they could reach to the Moon and back? (The Moon is about 238,710 miles [384,000 km] from the Earth.)

       The human brain can generate thousands of new brain cells every day?

       The number of internal ‘maps of thought’ that the brain is capable of producing is 1 followed by 10.5 million kilometres of standard typewritten zeros?

       To make a machine that could do everything you could do - to make another you - would cost well over a couple of billion dollars? You are highly valuable!

       At the same time as you make mental connections in your thoughts you are making physical connections in your brain? You are literally making that incredible brain of yours more complex, more sophisticated, and more powerful with every thought connection. The brain with which you are reading this now is therefore not the same as it was yesterday, and it will not be the same tomorrow!

The ‘Left and Right’ Brain

      The most important area of the brain to understand when it comes to tapping in to your brain power is the cerebrum or, as it is often referred to, the ‘left and right’ brain.

      This is because the cerebrum controls all the major memory and learning skills that we rely on to make us shine as individuals; if we understand how to tap into the full power of the cerebrum we can strengthen our mental and physical performance in every area of our lives. What do we actually mean by the left and right sides of the brain?