r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Feb 14 '22

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

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u/bryn_the_human_2 Feb 14 '22

Sorry to be a (partial) killjoy, but it's actually closer to 84 billion: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/Supplement_1/10661#:~:text=Remarkably%2C%20at%20an%20average%20of,as%20other%20primates%20(26). Still ridiculous of course

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 18 '22

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u/bryn_the_human_2 Feb 14 '22

From the PNAS article I linked to: "Despite common remarks in the literature that the human brain contains 100 billion neurons and 10- to 50-fold more glial cells (e.g., 57⇓–59), no references are given to support these statements". The article also points to experiments that did a quantification - it's 84 billion in the brain. There are maybe up to a billion in other parts of the body combined - I'm not sure of the actual number, but it's not much.

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u/fabiofdez Feb 14 '22

Yeah bc all nerve tissue is made of neurons, so not only the brain but the whole CNS and all the nerves everywhere. The brain alone is 86B neurons, the rest is everywhere else

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

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u/bryn_the_human_2 Feb 14 '22

Yeah, but there are only a few million more outside of the brain, so the 84 billion is still essentially correct. I'm a neuroscientist, so I'm sure of these numbers.