Skip to main content Skip to article - View  PDF - Download full issue Search ScienceDirect Neuron Volume 113, Issue 2, 22 January 2025, Pages 192-204 # Perspective The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s? Author links open overlay panelJieyuZheng1, MarkusMeister1 Show more Add to Mendeley Cite https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.11.008 Get rights and content Under an Elsevier user license Open archive ## Summary This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. In comparison, our sensory systems gather data at ∼109 bits/s. The stark contrast between these numbers remains unexplained and touches on fundamental aspects of brain function: what neural substrate sets this speed limit on the pace of our existence? Why does the brain need billions of neurons to process 10 bits/s? Why can we only think about one thing at a time? The brain seems to operate in two distinct modes: the “outer” brain handles fast high-dimensional sensory and motor signals, whereas the “inner” brain processes the reduced few bits needed to control behavior. Plausible explanations