With approximately 100 billion neurons, each
holds around 10,000 connections to other neurons, our
brain is a complex, congested, highway of thoughts.
Neurologists and cognitive psychologists nowadays
are probing how the human mind is hosting thoughts,
actions, emotions and our own personalities.
The ongoing investigation and continual study of this
complex organ isn't easy nor short. But the payoff for
achievements in this field is far beyond measure.
"If we understand the brain, we will understand both its capacities
and its limits for thought, emotions, reasoning, love and every
other aspect of human life,"- said Norman Weinberger, a neuroscientist
at the University of Irvine, California.
Credit: Graham Johnson, Graham Johnson Medical Media, Boulder, Colorado
So why is the brain so difficult to explore?
According to Scott Huettel of Duke University,
even if we put aside the fact that the brain is
superbly complex, it's research can never be
sufficiently objective.
That's because neuroscientists
must study the brain while using one. - "our own
subjective experience is a very poor tool to comprehand
how our brain works," Huettel said in an interview to
LiveScience.
Even so, scientists have made somewhat of a progress
trying to observe objectively at the human brain: Relatively new brain-imaging methods, such as the
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have
made it possible for scientists to watch the brain
in action and examine how neuronal networks function.
They have pointed locations in the brain responsible
for specific functions, such as "fight or flight",
visual information processing, dreaming and memorizing.
Still, the more profound explanation of how neuronal
networks form cognitive activities remains undiscovered.
Overall, the most important goal of most neuroscientists
is to discover a well argued explanation to the idea of
human consciousness, some of them consider it to be the
delineation between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.
