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I just read a blog post over at ScienceBlogs which really got me thinking. It was written by Jonah Lehrer, the main blogger for The Frontal Cortex blog. In it, he wrote about how the Allen Brain Atlas just printed their first set of genetic maps which detail the base pairs making up the genetic component of our brains. However, don’t let this seemingly revolutionary (though it is) step mislead you. One of the researchers compared the maps to “15th century sketches of the New World.” What did he mean by this? Well, the brain is disturbingly complex. Despite our best efforts to detail the ins and outs of just how our mind works, and even with all the progress made in other areas of human body and cellular research, we know so little about the human brain it’s scary. In fact, the discoveries made by such revolutionary research, have changed how we perceive the inner workings of our minds so many times that, as Lehrer points out, “we don’t even know what we don’t know.”
I do think about this very thing at times, as well as how difficult it is for a person (well, me in this particular case) to comprehend the idea of thought and emotion. I mean, it is pretty weird when you think about it critically. In our skulls we have a gray mass of rubbery tissue comprised of billions of neuronal connections. I have felt and held a brain before (thank you, anatomy lab) and I can honestly say it was one of the most alien things I have ever seen first-hand. I was absolutely intrigued. This thing is in my head? And this is not just because of the physical appearance of the human brain, despite being totally strange looking, but really at the idea that this goofy-looking thing was what controlled my every bodily-process, thought, feeling, reflex, and so on. I mean, how is that possible??
The idea of say, a muscle, is generally understandable. Lots of little myosin heads ratcheting themselves along an actin fiber, much like the teeth on a gear moving along a complementary chain, allowing the muscle to sustain heavier and heavier objects up to a certain point and then relaxing. Each myosin utilizing energy (in the form of ATP) to progress further along the actin chain. The process is, of course, more complicated than this, however, we can grasp the idea in our mind’s eye, encompass it, and basically understand it. It is, in many ways, akin to the machinery we see on a daily basis, whether it be a crane lifting a heavy stone block or an oil barge lifting its huge anchor up out of the sea, the process is somewhat similar. This type of comparison goes out the window when it comes to the brain.
The neurons in our brain are stimulated by electrical impulse to release chemicals in the connection spaces, or synapses, they make with other neurons. Some of these connections are stimulatory and propel the electrical signal to other neurons, while others are inhibitory and stop the impulse dead in its tracks. Well, that makes sense. There are different areas in our brain responsible for different types of sensation (i.e. temperature, pain, fine touch), as well as those that control our body’s movements, both mass and precision. Finally, there are sections that are responsible for the emotions we experience on a daily basis, from anger to sadness to joy, and those regions which permit us to have memories and experience that which has already happened with all the clarity as when it occurred. Now this is what just boggles my mind. How can we take these little root-like neurons, electrical signals, and chemicals and make them into me remembering what I had for lunch a week ago and why I didn’t like it (it probably had carrots in it — yeah, I don’t like carrots, got a problem with that?) Intelligent researchers would give you a plethora of reasons and how it might have evolutionary origins and that memories are just composite sensations amassed into a whole. They would be absolutely right but, in my opinion, that kind of explanation just loses something. There is something about the human brain that is just inexplicable. To allow us our complex emotions, sometimes many at the same time, while also permitting automated processes to occur (breathing, the beating of our heart) is, in a way, magical.
Now, I am also aware of the ways in which the brain can go awry and malfunction. These diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s are not only detrimental, but also incurable at this point in time. I am a firm believer in research, and do sincerely hope, despite my romantic ideas regarding the human brain, that advances in research will allow us to gain a better understanding of the way in which our minds function in order to achieve such cures. For now though, there is something eluding us, some sort of unknown factor or factors that defy current logic and keeps any kind of real understanding of the brain as a whole out of reach of scientists and researchers. The search for such a “key” continues; when it will be found is anyone’s guess. Until then, the brain will retain its air of mystery and keep our brightest minds guessing.
PS - Lehrer also included a link to a photo set of Allen Brain Atlas researchers prepping and sectioning brains in order to create an atlas of the human brain - http://bit.ly/9sVGPQ. Enjoy!
This article says it very well might have. It seems that one of the descendants of Admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keats, the man who received Nelson’s medals upon his death in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar, decided to put the medal on auction (on October 22nd) after all these centuries. 
