Neuroscience For Kids

Treasure Trove of Brain Trivia

A collection of trivia about the brain and nervous system from the archives of the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter. For more trivia about the brain, see brain facts and figures.

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January, 2025

A. Actor/comedian Jamie Foxx and NBA San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovic both revealed last month that they suffered from a stroke.

B. "Brain rot" is the 2024 Oxford Word of the Year (Source: https://corp.oup.com/news/brain-rot-named-oxford-word-of-the-year-2024/).

C. A mummified woolly mammoth brain, estimated to be 39,000 years old, was discovered in Northern Yakutia, Russia (Source: Kharlamova, A. et al., Preserved brain of the Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach 1799)) from the Yakutian permafrost, Quat. Intern., 406 (B): 86-93, 2016).

D. The fastest time to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded is 12 seconds. This feat requires that people memorize the colors of the cube before they are blindfolded (Source: https://tinyurl.com/yunddhm2).

E. "Brain terrain" is the name scientists have given to areas on the surface of the planet Mars that look like the outside of the brain (Source: https://tinyurl.com/4jzazwnx).

February, 2025

A. Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) likely had Tourette syndrome (Source: Chirchiglia, D., et al., When history meets neurology: Neurological diseases of famous people, Neuroscientist, 25:388-393, 2019.

B. Jazz musician Charles Mingus (1922-1979) was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) in 1977 (Source: Pearl, P.L., Neurological problems of jazz legends. J Child Neurol. 24:1037-1042, 2009).

C. The earliest known drawing of an insect (bee) brain was created by Johannes Swammerdam, a Dutch scientist, in the mid-1670s (Source: Strazzoni, A., The first illustration of an insect brain: Swammerdam on the honeybee (with an unedited autograph), Notes Rec. [2025], https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2024.0028.

D. British playwright Nick Payne wrote a play titled "Incognito" with three main characters: H.M., the patient with anterograde amnesia; Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who removed Albert Einstein's brain; a neuropsychologist.

E. "Oneirology" is the word for the scientific study of dreams.

March, 2025

A. Anechoic Chamber at The Orfield Laboratories, Inc. in Minneapolis, MN, has been called the "Quietest Place on Earth" (Source: https://www.orfieldlabs.com/labs/anechoic-chamber).

B. Snakes that hunt during the day have eyes that block ultraviolet light while snakes that hunt during the night have eyes that allow passage of ultraviolet light (Source: https://tinyurl.com/2s4j9nm9).

C. Drawing things you want to remember can be an effective memory aid (Source: Meade, et al., Drawing as an encoding tool: Memorial benefits in younger and older adults, Experimental Aging Research, 44:369-396, 2018).

D. Increased blood flow to the temporoparietal junction area of the brain may be related to a better ability to remember dreams (Source: Eichenlaub, J.B., et al., Resting brain activity varies with dream recall frequency between subjects, Neuropsychopharmacol., 39:1594-1602, 2014).

E. Ultraprocessed food may speed cognitive decline later in life (Source: Gomes Goncalves, N., et al., Association between consumption of ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline, JAMA Neurol., 80:142-150, 2023).

April, 2025

This month's brain trivia all come from the book "What a Bee Knows. Exploring the Thoughts, Memories and Personalities of Bees," Washington, D.C: Island Press, 2023.

A. Bees cannot see fine detail until they are 15-25 cm from an object.

B. Bees lose their ability to see color when they fly faster than 5 km/hr.

C. Bees have specialized sensory cells to smell carbon dioxide and water vapor.

D. The brain of a honey bee weighs 2 mg (0.00007 oz).

E. Bees appear to sleep and even take short naps.

May, 2025

A. Researchers have developed a new pain medication that targets delta opioid receptors; this drug may provide pain relief with fewer side effects (Source: Varga, B.R., et al., Structure-guided design of partial agonists at an opioid receptor, Nat. Commun., 16, 2518, 2025).

B. The exact wiring diagram of a one cubic millimeter area of mouse's visual cortex, with its 200,000 cells, four kilometers of axons, and 523 million synapses, has been mapped (Source: Allen Institute, https://tinyurl.com/ebnpt79k).

C. Viewing art can improve feelings of well-being (Source: Trupp, M.D., et al., The impact of viewing art on well-being -- a systematic review of the evidence base and suggested mechanisms, J. Positive Psychol., 1-25, 2025).

D. A chemical (a misfolded protein) found in cerebrospinal fluid can help with the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (Source: Schuler, M., et al., Alpha-synuclein misfolding as fluid biomarker for Parkinson's disease measured with the iRS platform, EMBO Mol. Med., 2025).

E. Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Wayne revealed in 2013 that he has epilepsy.

June, 2025

A. The echidna, also called the spiny anteater, has electroreceptors in its snout to detect electrical fields and find food (Source: Gregory, J.E. et al, Responses of electroreceptors in the snout of the echidna, J. Physiol., 414:521-38, 1989).

B. Danionella cerebrum is a species of small transparent fish.

C. Researchers studied the use of a snooze alarm in more than 3 million nights of people who used a sleep monitoring smartphone application. Results showed that 55.6% of people used the snooze alarm and when the snooze alarm was used, it was pressed an average of 2.4 times (Source: Robbins, R. et al., Snooze alarm use in a global population of smartphone users, Sci Rep., 15, 16942, 2025).

D. A new method to identify a misfolded protein (alpha-synuclein) in cerebrospinal fluid may help diagnose Parkinson’s disease (Source: Schuler, M. et al., Alpha-synuclein misfolding as fluid biomarker for Parkinson’s disease measured with the iRS platform, EMBO Molecular Medicine, 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s44321-025-00229-z.

E. Monitoring the brainwaves of children having surgery can be used to adjust the amount of anesthesia, reduce post-operative complications and lead to faster recovery (Source: Miyasaka, K.W. et al., EEG-guided titration of sevoflurane and pediatric anesthesia emergence delirium: A randomized clinical trial, JAMA Pediatr. Published online April 21, 2025. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.0517).

More trivia from other years:

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2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998

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