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The brain, a highly complex organ, is central to numerous diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and depression. Neuroscience aims to unravel its mysteries to improve treatments for these conditions. Alex Fornito, Director at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Australia, explains that while metaphors like the brain as a steam engine, electrical network, or city have helped us conceptualize its function, they are limited and sometimes misleading. Our understanding has evolved from early techniques like Mosso’s measurement of cerebral blood flow to advanced imaging methods such as MRI, EEG, and MEG, which provide increasingly detailed views of brain activity. However, real-time, non-invasive visualization of neurons remains challenging due to the brain’s immense complexity, comprising billions of neurons interconnected by trillions of fibers.
Fornito highlights initiatives like the U.S. BRAIN project focused on improving brain imaging and developing new therapies, including non-invasive brain stimulation and psychological interventions aimed at reorganizing neural circuits to alleviate mental illness. Treatment approaches range from surgical implants restoring function in patients with Parkinson’s or paralysis to pharmacological methods for disorders like depression and epilepsy. Although simulations of brain activity have advanced, they remain simplified models without true consciousness. As neuroscience tools and knowledge grow rapidly, the ultimate goal is to deepen our understanding of the brain-mind connection and create innovative treatments to enhance quality of life for those affected by brain disorders.
If we can understand the brain, we will be able to address diseases and disorders that have so far eluded us.
The brain is one of the most complex organs in the human body, and diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia, depression, etc. are linked to it. Can neuroscience unlock knowledge about the brain and help these people? But what do we know about the brain? Alex Fornito, Director at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Australia, helps us understand what we know about our gray mass, what we don’t, and how neuroscience can help us design new treatments
The brain is a complex organ in need of metaphors
“When we are confronted with a new or mysterious phenomenon, our brain tries to compare it with something we have already experienced,” explains Alex Fornito as we review the publications about the brain for the general public in print media.
When the steam engine became popular in the 18th century, the brain was explained as a complex tubular network of pipes and valves. Then came the era of electrical deployment, coinciding with the marvelous drawings of José Ortega y Gasset. We discovered the electrical brain. For decades we have looked at the brain and compared it to a processor, although there are now those who point out that its complexity resembles the exchanges that take place in cities. The brain-city.
“The need for analogy arises from the way we learn and make sense of the world,” relates Alex Fornito, because “analogies are an effective way to make those comparisons.” However, we should not restrict thinking to inappropriate analogy.
Metaphors have helped develop understanding about the brain, “but they have also been misleading when applied too narrowly” because, at the end of the day, the brain is not a set of ducts, or electrical signals, or data processor, or urban metabolism. It is all that, and much more.
Understanding what’s going on in the brain, a brief history
Alex Fornito recounted that the first technique for measuring brain function was created in 1882 by the doctor (and archaeologist) Angelo Mosso and was called Mosso equilibrium. It consisted of recording the pulsation of the human cortex of his patients. Mosso based his entire technique on changes in cerebral blood flow, and more than a century later we continue to use this parameter as a reference.
Using X-rays, the American neurosurgeon Walter Dandy invented ventriculography in 1918, improved in 1927 as cerebral angiography by the Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz. They brought a new perspective to the understanding of the brain.
Currently, says Alex Fornito, “MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) can record changes in activity that occur in seconds and in regions spanning a few millimeters”; whereas electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) are much faster, but have less resolution. There are quite a few startups established in these fields.
Why can’t we see the brain in real time without invasive mechanisms?
La respuesta corta es porque “cerebro es un sistema muy complejo” que, “en su nivel más fundamental, estThe short answer is because “brain is a very complex system” that, “at its most fundamental level, is made up of billions of neurons connected by trillions of fibers,” explains Alex Fornito. As they link together to form networks, they are capable of supporting thoughts. But we can’t see them, although there have been attempts.
Alex Fornito is now focusing on the US initiative ‘Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies’ (BRAIN), which aims, among other challenges, to be able to visualize specific neurons in real time.
BRAIN’s goals include improving the lives of patients with diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, better understanding people with autism spectrum disorders, and even preventing depression as far as possible.
As Alex Fornito points out, “human brain scanners are becoming more and more powerful and are constantly improving their spatial and temporal resolution,” so it would not be surprising if at some point they leave the laboratory or hospitals, as happened with pulse meters, blood pressure meters or oximeters. We are nowhere near anything like that, though.
The key is in the brain
“All behaviors and experiences arise from our brain,” Alex Fornito tells us, “so it is correct to think that any changes in our experience that arise as a consequence of mental illness will be reflected in the structure or function of our brain.”
In other words, “the self and the brain are one”. Or, as synthesized by Daniel Dennett, philosopher of science in the study of consciousness, “if your brain is a smartphone, consciousness is the screen”. Modern medicine takes these axioms as a reference.
An ultimate goal of neuroscience, Alex Fornito again says, is to develop strategies to improve brain function in people with mental illness and other brain disorders, in the hope that such treatments will alleviate suffering. If we are able to better understand how the human brain works, quality of life could improve.
This is why lines of research are opening up, such as non-invasive brain stimulation or certain branches of psychological therapy whose aim is (not to read literally) to reorganize brain wiring. The goal in both modalities is to improve the quality of life of patients.
New ways to relieve pain
There are two main approaches to solve the pain resulting from diseases, pathologies or brain disorders, among other circumstances.
One approach is surgical interventions, including those that place cybernetic components that correct some function. Matt Eagles is well known for his media popularity. He has suffered from Parkinson’s disease since the age of 7, but a stimulator chip placed in his brain has brought him back to life. Long before that, Matthew Nagle, a quadriplegic, was able to move objects by thought alone thanks to the BrainGate chip.
The other approach is pharmacological treatments, which also require knowledge of the behavior of the brain and how the medicine interacts with different compounds in it. Being non-invasive, this branch has so far many more developments in the works. For example, there are many treatments for depression and epilepsy, and more are being researched.
Can we simulate a human brain?
Until now, medical research has attempted to replicate parts of the human brain for the purpose of research and learning. Interestingly, this learning has reinforced some simplified models of the brain within computer simulations. They feed back on each other, but it is a long-distance race, decades or centuries in the future.
What is understood as mind is an emergent property of a complex brain made up of billions of neurons. A property that individual cells or tissues lack, but which manifests itself once the network reaches a certain critical mass.
So far, Alex Fornito points out, some simulations with small sets of cells, either locally or with the whole brain, have been quite successful. However, these models lack thinking, are not a mind, and are therefore very limited.
With each passing decade, neuroscience has more and more tools at its disposal, from a better understanding of how the brain-mind axis, to new therapies, treatments and surgical procedures. Innovation is advancing at a rapid pace.
Co-Director of the Brain, Mind and Society Research Hub and Head of the Brain research division at Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health of Australia