BS 133 Counting Neurons with Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel

Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD: Neuroscience for Everyone

Ginger Campbell, MD

Life Sciences, Health & Fitness, Neuroscience, Medicine, Brain, Science

4.8 • 896 Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2017

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How many neurons does the typical human brain contain? The oft-quoted number of 100 billion turns out to have been a guess that was wrong! By a lot! Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel is the Brazilian neuroscientist who developed a revolutionary new technique for accurately counting the neurons in brains of all sizes. She shocked the scientific community when she determined that the average human brain contains only 86 billion neurons, but we still have more neurons in our cerebral cortex than any other species. Learn what all this means in Brain Science 133.

Please visit http://brainsciencepodcast.com for detailed show notes and episode transcripts.

Send email to Dr. Campbell at [email protected] or leave voice feedback at http://speakpipe.com/docartemis.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Brain Science, the
0:05.0	the podcast that explores how recent discoveries in
0:07.7	neuroscience are unraveling the mystery of how our brains make us human.
0:11.7	I'm your host Dr. Ginger Campbell and this is
0:14.5	episode 133. If you're a regular listener you know that I love surprises
0:20.6	especially when they up-end long-standing dogmas.
0:24.0	Today we will be talking with Susanna Herculana Hoosel, the Brazilian scientist who determined
0:29.7	that the human brain averages 86 billion neurons, which is significantly less than the 100 billion
0:36.4	number that is ubiquitous in the literature.
0:39.8	We're going to be talking about her book, The Human Advantage, How Our Brains became remarkable.
0:46.0	We will learn about her a pioneering method for counting neurons in large brains and discover
0:52.1	a few more surprises along the way.
0:54.0	Before you listen to the interview I want to remind you that complete show notes and
0:59.1	episode transcripts are available on our website at brain science podcast
1:03.2	dot com you can also send me email at brain science
1:07.2	podcast at gmail dot com or submit voice feedback at speakpipe.com
1:13.2	slash doc Artemis. I will be back after the interview to review the
1:18.2	key ideas and to share a few announcements.
1:20.8	Susanna it's great to have you on brain science announcements. name. They probably have heard about your work, which includes, of course, determining that the average
1:35.0	number of human neurons is about $86 billion.
1:39.9	$86 billion, not 100.
1:42.4	And your book tells the story of this discovery and it also explains,
	...

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