Interesting Facts About Brain

Clinical significance
Clinically, death is defined as an absence of brain activity as measured by EEG. Injuries to the brain tend to affect large areas of the organ, sometimes causing major deficits in intelligence, memory, personality, and movement. Head trauma caused, for example, by vehicular or industrial accidents, is a leading cause of death in youth and middle age. In many cases, more damage is caused by resultant edema than by the impact itself. Stroke, caused by the blockage or rupturing of blood vessels in the brain, is another major cause of death from brain damage.
Other problems in the brain can be more accurately classified as diseases. Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and motor neuron diseases are caused by the gradual death of individual neurons, leading to diminution in movement control, memory, and cognition. There are five motor neuron diseases, the most common of which is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).