The human body is perfect in almost every single aspect. The chemical balance, the blood’s circulation, our defense system that kills almost any virus nowadays, but the main component is the brain. It is the reason why we can do anything, and without it, we couldn’t be here. Now, there’s a reason why humans are at the top of the food chain: we are smarter than any other animal, but there are still aspects we don’t know about our own mind and how our conscience works 24/7, and scientists are close to the real answer.
The myths behind the brain’s power: Old concepts dismissed
While space agencies study the cosmos, biologists study nature, and many other areas of science have their own responsibilities, one thing remains unique to everybody: our consciousness. We are all able to think and process things daily, even when we don’t want to, and researchers don’t know exactly why.
In the past, scientists believed that humans only used 10% of the brain’s capacity, but this information turned out to be a myth. We do use 100% of our brain power, just not at the same time. During tasks, some areas are more active than others, which means that we can’t fully use our full capacity of every single region of the cortex at once, but we are still using everything we have. But even with all the advancements, the reason why we think was still a mystery, until now.
A new theory comes up: Electromagnetic fields are making their way in
Lately, one idea has been drawing more attention in labs: the thought that human consciousness might be tied to electromagnetic fields created by neurons when they fire. These are called ephaptic fields, and they’re the same signals that machines like EEGs can detect when doctors measure brain activity.
Psychologist Tamlyn Hunt, a guest researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote in Scientific American that ephaptic fields are simply the result of normal electric and magnetic activity in our cells. Though not widely discussed, new findings suggest these forces could play a bigger role in the brain than scientists once believed – maybe even in shaping consciousness itself.
The experiment that changed everything: Humans weren’t put under test
One striking experiment from 2019 at Case Western Reserve University showed this in action. Researchers cut the hippocampus of a mouse straight down the middle. Even after the cut, they still picked up electrical activity jumping across the gap – something that only happens if electric fields carry the signal. When the two halves were pulled more than 400 microns apart, the effect disappeared.
Lead researcher Dominique Durand later described it as an unforgettable result that surprised not just his team, but every scientist who heard about it. This kind of electrical “shortcut” might also solve another mystery. Normal neuron firing is relatively slow, not fast enough to fully explain human thought. But when ephaptic fields are added to the equation, the speed increases by thousands of times, according to another study published in 2020.
Theory still in work: Speculations are becoming truth
The theory is still developing, and it doesn’t fully answer the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness – how brain processes translate into the personal experience of being aware. Even so, history shows that scientific puzzles often start as speculation before becoming accepted fact.
With every study, the outline of how consciousness really works gets a little sharper. While this research focuses on the electromagnetic fields, another study points out something going on in our skin, approaching molecule vibration as the reason why we feel everything (the study also answered other basic questions with no clear answers).