Brain potential

Cognitive Potential Vs Brain Usage
Estimating the human cognitive potential has always been a place for myth and mystery. One example of a well-spread myth is that humans only use 5 to in their day-to-day lives.
The advancement in the field of medical technology led to the development of new brain scanners such as fMRIs, PETs, EEGs etc. Scanning the human brain while performing different sorts of mental exercises led to one solid conclusion: In terms of usage - humans just like all other creatures tend to use most of their brain. Furthermore, the few "less used" locations are going through atrophy and die out.
When talking about potential or capacity however, research is scarce. The rough contemporary estimation is based on the possible linkage opportunities between neurons. There are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, 30 billion within the cerebral cortex alone. Hence, the estimated "capacity" is the sum of all possible neuro-connections, calculated to be the number 10 in the power of 1,000,000. The number of linkage opportunities is indeed vast but practical application of tapping the human maximal brain capacity remains theoretical.
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Within the realm of public education, cognitive optimization training is scarce. Some educational institutions, mostly in the private sector do host some sort of learning techniques programs, but they are generally customized for the learning disabled individuals, thus creating a void for some time. This void has been exploding with growth in the last decade by countless self improvement books, audio books, lectures, companies, etc.

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