• Question: how many cells are their in the brain?

    Asked by bluebella to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 16 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by rachelmcguinness.
    • Photo: Kimberley Bryon

      Kimberley Bryon answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      A great question!

      There are about 100 billion neurons and that is just one kind of cell present in the human brain. There also other special cells called glial cells there too. I have read that scientists estimate that about 50% of the cells in the brain are neurons so including glial cells probably about 200 billion cells. That is a lot of cells!

    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I’ve never counted them myself, so I’ll just trust Kimberley’s answer.

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Good question…Kimberley knows about brains so I guess she’s probably right on this…my brain might have less if its true that you lose some whenever you bump it – though I looked that up recently and apparently there’s some debate on it!! 🙂

    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hey Bluebella… Kimberly got’s this one nailed!

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Hi bluebella! Nice question!! I am guessing Kimberley must be right! She does know A LOT about our brains. That’s the nice thing in science – we can’t know it all, but there is usually someone else to ask =)

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