Hi, this is David Eagleman.

I've done a couple dozen of these podcast episodes so far, and I have been so gratified to see all the

emails I get at Podcast at Eagleman.com where people have comments or questions.

And so what I want to do in this short episode today was just to address a bunch of questions.

Okay, Laura from Miami asks, is it true that we only use 10% of our brain?

Thank you for that question.

It turns out that is not true.

It turns out your brain is screaming with activity around the clock all the time.

All the neurons in your brain are active.

They're all popping off.

Even when you're in a deep sleep, they're popping off.

So it turns out you do not use just 10% of your brain.

You use 100% of your brain essentially all the time.

Now, the question that's been interesting to me is, why is it such a sticky

myth, even though it has no basis in the science? Why does it stick around? And I think it's because

it must be sort of aspirational or hopeful, which is if we think we're only using 10% of our brains,

then we think, wow, I could be much smarter than I am and do much more than I can do right now.

But in fact, it's a myth. Thank you for the question.

I did an episode a little while ago about in-groups and out-groups and the difference that we can

measure in the brain. And Harun from Berkeley wrote and asked, what if your brain shows a big difference between in and out groups,

but you don't want that to be true, like with your behavior?

So that's a great question, Harun.

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