It is hard to see where we should be going, apart from simply collecting more data or counting on the latest exciting experimental approach. Books are repeatedly produced that each claim to explain the brain in different ways.Īnd yet there is a growing conviction among some neuroscientists that our future path is not clear. Some of the most profound consequences of our growing mastery can be seen in our ability to enable a paralysed person to control a robotic arm with the power of their mind.Įvery day, we hear about new discoveries that shed light on how brains work, along with the promise – or threat – of new technology that will enable us to do such far-fetched things as read minds, or detect criminals, or even be uploaded into a computer. In some species, we can change the brain’s very structure at will, altering the animal’s behaviour as a result.

We are drawing up increasingly detailed and complex functional maps of the brain, human and otherwise. We can now make a mouse remember something about a smell it has never encountered, turn a bad mouse memory into a good one, and even use a surge of electricity to change how people perceive faces. Tens of thousands of researchers are devoting massive amounts of time and energy to thinking about what brains do, and astonishing new technology is enabling us to both describe and manipulate that activity. Scientists are accumulating vast amounts of data about structure and function in a huge array of brains, from the tiniest to our own. W e are living through one of the greatest of scientific endeavours – the attempt to understand the most complex object in the universe, the brain.

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