Welcome to Zombie week, the best week for random facts about brains. Check back each day for your daily dose of BRAINS.
Today's fact:
The term "grey matter" actually refers to the "soma" or "body" of the neurons in the brain. The soma is where the nucleus and some other major organelles are found. Grey matter is found in the most superficial parts of the brain's folds—if you look at a cross-section of the brain, grey matter is in the shaded bits:
The "axons", or tails(ish) of the neurons are called "white matter." It is the white matter that carries messages from one part of the brain to the other.
So in P. G. Wodehouse's famous comedies, when Bertie refers to Jeeves's "grey matter", he is actually just referring to the surface layers of the folds of Jeeves's brain. Technically, he should tell Jeeves to use his "white matter" also, because what use is a neuron if it isn't communicating with other neurons? But I don't think Bertie has really thought it out that far.
Brian Fact: One of my high school teachers used to call me "Grey Matter."
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