Mondo Knows Facts

The human brain contains about 86 billion neurons

Vast neural networks communicate across trillions of individual synaptic connections

The adult human brain houses roughly 86 billion nerve cells or neurons. Each neuron connects to thousands of others via synapses, creating a dense communication network estimated to contain over 100 trillion individual connections for processing information.

Human brain lateral view description 2
John A Beal, PhD Dep't. of Cellular Biology & Anatomy, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport ยท CC BY 2.5 ยท licence ยท source

Where this comes from

NIH

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

More facts like this

Tags: brain, neurons, nervous system

The human brain contains about 86 billion neurons: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Vast neural networks communicate across trillions of individual synaptic connections. The figure is taken from NIH, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a human body fact?
Yes. It sits on the Human Body shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.