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In the average adult at rest, the brain is only about 2% of body weight, yet it uses about 20% of the oxygen and calories the body consumes.
ILLUSTRATION · AIIn the average adult at rest, the brain is about 2% of body weight but uses about 20% of the body's oxygen and calories.
In a 2002 commentary in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Marcus Raichle and Debra Gusnard noted that in the average adult human, the brain represents about 2% of body weight.
Despite its relatively small size, the brain accounts for about 20% of the oxygen, and hence the calories, consumed by the body at rest. They add that the brain's high rate of metabolism is remarkably constant despite widely varying mental and motor activity.
SourcesEvery claim traced
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