The brain has been called everything from an enchanted loom, to an electrical storm, to a three-pound blob. It is the symbol of intelligence, the contrast to mind, the commanding organ of our bodies. The brain is oh-so many things, both culturally and biologically.1
It also turns out to be much more complicated than we had hoped.
For instance, we once had this idea that we could correlate the bumps on our skulls to different functions in our brains. Big bump on the back? Lots of intelligence. Big bump in the front? Sure hope you’re good with your hands.2
Phrenology ended up being mostly bunk, but it did lead us to the idea that brains could be divided into regions with different functions. And although that idea has held up pretty well, it too is under threat. Brain areas can’t be separated as cleanly as oil from water, that’s for sure. It’s a little more like the boundaries between countries—many historically established, some quite arbitrary, but others carrying meaningful differences about the global role of those countries.
And the commanding organ thing? It’s nowhere close to a one-way street from your brain to your body. The body talks to the brain just as much as the brain claims it has control. Each year we’re learning more and more about the influence of the gut and the peripheral nervous system on our brain’s functioning, largely thanks to technological innovations and the blurring of academic disciplines.
It wasn’t until the second half of the twentieth century that we had a reasonable way to study the brain and nervous system. Up until then, it was a bunch of folks blindly sticking electrodes into various creatures, some fortunate to listen into a neuron or two. In just the past couple of decades, we’ve exposed the brain’s array of cell types and circuits to all kinds of investigation. We can ask unprecedented questions about how the brain works, how it communicates with the body, and what it means for who we are as humans. As we address all of these questions, we’re amassing a ton of data.
And we need you to help.
