Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain

By David Eagleman Source: Discover Magazine Of all the objects in the universe, the human many neurons in the brain as there are stars surprise that, espite the glo! from recent a min , !e still fin ourselves s"uinting in the brain is the most complex: There are as in the Milky Way galaxy. So it is no vances in the science of the brain an ark some!hat.

#ut !e are at least beginning to grasp the crucial mysteries of neuroscience an starting to make hea !ay in a ressing them. $ven partial ans!ers to these %& "uestions coul restructure our un erstan ing of the roughly three'poun mass of gray an !hite matter that efines !ho !e are.

1. How is information coded in neural activity?

(eurons, the speciali)e cells of the brain, can pro uce brief spikes of voltage in their outer membranes. These electrical pulses travel along speciali)e extensions calle axons to cause the release of chemical signals else!here in the brain. The

binary, all'or'nothing spikes appear to carry information about the !orl : What o * see+ ,m * hungry+ Which !ay shoul * turn+ #ut !hat is the co e of these millisecon bits of voltage+ Spikes may mean ifferent things at ifferent places an times in the brain. *n parts of the central nervous system -the brain an spinal cor ., the rate of spiking often correlates !ith clearly efinable external features, like the presence of a color or a face. *n the peripheral nervous system, more spikes in icates more heat, a lou er soun , or a stronger muscle contraction. ,s !e elve eeper into the brain, ho!ever, !e fin populations of neurons involve in more complex phenomena, like reminiscence, value ju gments, simulation of possible futures, the esire for a mate, an so on/an here the signals become ifficult to ecrypt. The challenge is something like popping the cover off a computer, measuring a fe! transistors chattering bet!een high an lo! voltage, an trying to guess the content of the Web page being surfe . *t is likely that mental information is store not in single cells but in populations of cells an patterns of their activity. 0o!ever, it is currently not clear ho! to kno! !hich neurons belong to a particular group1 !orse still, current technologies -like sticking fine electro es irectly into the brain. are not !ell suite to measuring several thousan neurons at once. (or is it simple to monitor the connections of even one neuron: , typical neuron in the cortex receives input from some %&,&&& other neurons. ,lthough traveling bursts of voltage can carry signals across the brain "uickly, those electrical spikes may not be the only/or even the main/!ay that information is carrie in nervous systems. 2or!ar 'looking stu ies are examining other possible information couriers: glial cells -poorly un erstoo brain cells that are %& times as common as neurons., other kin s of signaling mechanisms bet!een cells -such as ne!ly iscovere gases an pepti es., an the biochemical casca es that take place insi e cells.

2. How are memories stored and retrieved?

When you learn a ne! fact, like someone3s name, there are physical changes in the structure of your brain. #ut !e on3t yet comprehen exactly !hat those changes are, ho! they are orchestrate across vast seas of synapses an neurons, ho! they embo y kno!le ge, or ho! they are rea out eca es later for retrieval. One complication is that there are many kin s of memories. The brain seems to istinguish short'term memory -remembering a phone number just long enough to ial it. from long'term memory -!hat you i on your last birth ay.. Within long' term memory, eclarative memories -like names an facts. are istinct from non' eclarative memories -ri ing a bicycle, being affecte by a subliminal message., an !ithin these general categories are numerous subtypes. 4ifferent brain structures seem to support ifferent kin s of learning an memory1 brain amage can lea to the loss of one type !ithout isturbing the others. (onetheless, similar molecular mechanisms may be at !ork in these memory types. ,lmost all theories of memory propose that memory storage epen s on synapses, the tiny connections bet!een brain cells. When t!o cells are active at the same time, the connection bet!een them strengthens1 !hen they are not active at the same time, the connection !eakens. Out of such synaptic changes emerges an association.

$xperience can, for example, fortify the connections bet!een the smell of coffee, its taste, its color, an the feel of its !armth. Since the populations of neurons connecte !ith each of these sensations are typically activate at the same time, the connections bet!een them can cause all the sensory associations of coffee to be triggere by the smell alone. #ut looking only at associations/an strengthene connections bet!een neurons/ may not be enough to explain memory. The great secret of memory is that it mostly enco es the relationships bet!een things more than the etails of the things themselves. When you memori)e a melo y, you enco e the relationships bet!een the notes, not the notes per se, !hich is !hy you can easily sing the song in a ifferent key. Memory retrieval is even more mysterious than storage. When * ask if you kno! ,lex 5itchie, the ans!er is imme iately obvious to you, an there is no goo theory to explain ho! memory retrieval can happen so "uickly. Moreover, the act of retrieval can estabili)e the memory. When you recall a past event, the memory becomes temporarily susceptible to erasure. Some intriguing recent experiments sho! it is possible to chemically block memories from reforming uring that !in o!, suggesting ne! ethical "uestions that re"uire careful consi eration.

. !"at does t"e #aseline activity in t"e #rain re$resent?

(euroscientists have mostly stu ie changes in brain activity that correlate !ith stimuli !e can present in the laboratory, such as a picture, a touch, or a soun . #ut the activity of the brain at rest/its 6baseline7 activity/may prove to be the most important aspect of our mental lives. The a!ake, resting brain uses 8& percent of the bo y3s total oxygen, even though it makes up only 8 percent of the bo y3s mass. Some of the baseline activity may represent the brain restructuring kno!le ge in the backgroun , simulating future states an events, or manipulating memories. Most things !e care about/reminiscences, emotions, rives, plans, an so on/can occur !ith no external stimulus an no overt output that can be measure . One clue about baseline activity comes from neuroimaging experiments, !hich sho! that activity ecreases in some brain areas just before a person performs a goal' irecte task. The areas that ecrease are the same regar less of the etails of the task, hinting that these areas may run baseline programs uring o!ntime, much as your computer might run a isk' efragmenting program only !hile the resources are not nee e else!here. *n the tra itional vie! of perception, information from the outsi e !orl pours into the senses, !orks its !ay through the brain, an makes itself consciously seen, hear , an felt. #ut many scientists are coming to think that sensory input may merely revise ongoing internal activity in the brain. (ote, for example, that sensory input is superfluous for perception: When your eyes are close uring reaming, you still enjoy rich visual experience. The a!ake state may be essentially the same as the reaming state, only partially anchore by external stimuli. *n this vie!, your conscious life is an a!ake ream.

%. How do #rains simulate t"e future?

When a fire chief encounters a ne! bla)e, he "uickly makes pre ictions about ho! to best position his men. 5unning such simulations of the future/!ithout the risk an expense of actually attempting them/allo!s 6our hypotheses to ie in our stea ,7 as philosopher 9arl :opper put it. 2or this reason, the emulation of possible futures is one of the key businesses that intelligent brains invest in. ;et !e kno! little about ho! the brain3s future simulator !orks because tra itional neuroscience technologies are best suite for correlating brain activity !ith explicit behaviors, not mental emulations. One i ea suggests that the brain3s resources are evote not only to processing stimuli an reacting to them -!atching a ball come at you. but also to constructing an internal mo el of that outsi e !orl an extracting rules for ho! things ten to behave -kno!ing ho! balls move through the air.. *nternal mo els may play a role not only in motor acts, like catching, but also in perception. 2or example, vision ra!s on significant amounts of information in the brain, not just on input from the retina. Many neuroscientists have suggeste over the past fe! eca es that perception arises not simply by buil ing up bits of ata through a hierarchy but rather by matching incoming sensory ata against internally generate expectations. #ut ho! oes a system learn to make goo pre ictions about the !orl + *t may be that memory exists only for this purpose. This is not a ne! i ea: T!o millennia ago, ,ristotle an <alen emphasi)e memory as a tool in making successful pre ictions for the future. $ven your memories about your life may come to be un erstoo as a special subtype of emulation, one that is pinne o!n an thus likely to flo! in a certain irection.

&. !"at are emotions?

We often talk about brains as information'processing systems, but any account of the brain that lacks an account of emotions, motivations, fears, an hopes is incomplete. $motions are measurable physical responses to salient stimuli: the increase heartbeat an perspiration that accompany fear, the free)ing response of a rat in the presence of a cat, or the extra muscle tension that accompanies anger. 2eelings, on the other han , are the subjective experiences that sometimes accompany these processes: the sensations of happiness, envy, sa ness, an so on. $motions seem to employ largely unconscious machinery/for example, brain areas involve in emotion !ill respon to angry faces that are briefly presente an then rapi ly maske , even !hen subjects are una!are of having seen the face. ,cross cultures the expression of basic emotions is remarkably similar, an as 4ar!in observe , it is also similar across all mammals. There are even strong similarities in physiological responses among humans, reptiles, an bir s !hen sho!ing fear, anger, or parental love. Mo ern vie!s propose that emotions are brain states that "uickly assign value to outcomes an provi e a simple plan of action. Thus, emotion can be vie!e as a type of computation, a rapi , automatic summary that initiates appropriate actions. When a bear is galloping to!ar you, the rising fear irects your brain to o the right things - etermining an escape route. instea of all the other things it coul be oing -roun ing out your grocery list.. When it comes to perception, you can spot an object more "uickly if it is, say, a spi er rather than a roll of tape. *n the realm of memory, emotional events are lai o!n ifferently by a parallel memory system involving a brain area calle the amyg ala.

One goal of emotional neuroscience is to un erstan the nature of the many isor ers of emotion, epression being the most common an costly. *mpulsive aggression an violence are also thought to be conse"uences of faulty emotion regulation.

'. !"at is intelligence?

*ntelligence comes in many forms, but it is not kno!n !hat intelligence/in any of its guises/means biologically. 0o! o billions of neurons !ork together to manipulate kno!le ge, simulate novel situations, an erase inconse"uential information+ What happens !hen t!o concepts 6fit7 together an you su enly see a solution to a problem+ What happens in your brain !hen it su enly a!ns on you that the killer in the movie is actually the unsuspecte !ife+ 4o intelligent people store kno!le ge in a !ay that is more istille , more varie , or more easily retrievable+ We all gre! up !ith the near'future promise of smart robots, but to ay !e have little better than the 5oomba robotic vacuum cleaner. What !ent !rong+ There are t!o camps for explaining the !eak performance of artificial intelligence: $ither !e o not kno! enough of the fun amental principles of brain function, or !e have not simulate enough neurons !orking together. *f the latter is true, that3s goo ne!s: =omputation gets cheaper an faster each year, so !e shoul not be far from enjoying life !ith ,simovian robots !ho can effectively ten our househol s. ;et most neuroscientists recogni)e ho! istant !e are from that ream. =urrently, our robots are little more intelligent than sea slugs, an even after eca es of clever research, they can barely istinguish figures from a backgroun at the skill level of an infant. 5ecent experiments explore the possible relationship of intelligence to the capacity of short'term memory, the ability to "uickly resolve cognitive conflict, or the ability to store stronger associations bet!een facts1 the results are not yet conclusive. Many other possibilities/better restructuring of store information, more parallel processing, or superior emulation of possible futures/have not yet been probe by experiments. *ntelligence may not be un erpinne by a single mechanism or a single neural area. Whatever intelligence is, it lies at the heart of !hat is special about 0omo sapiens. Other species are har !ire to solve particular problems, !hile our ability to abstract allo!s us to solve an open'en e series of problems. This means that stu ies of intelligence in mice an monkeys may be barking up the !rong family tree.

(. How is time re$resented in t"e #rain?

0un re 'yar ashes begin !ith a gunshot rather than a strobe light because your brain can react more "uickly to a bang than to a flash. ;et as soon as !e get outsi e the realm of motor reactions an into the realm of perception -!hat you report that you sa! an hear ., the story changes. When it comes to a!areness, the brain goes through a goo eal of trouble to synchroni)e incoming signals that are processe at very ifferent spee s. 2or example, snap your fingers in front of you. ,lthough your au itory system processes information about the snap about >& millisecon s faster than your visual

system, the sight of your fingers an the soun of the snap seem simultaneous. ;our brain is employing fancy e iting tricks to make simultaneous events in the !orl feel simultaneous to you, even !hen the ifferent senses processing the information !oul in ivi ually s!ear other!ise. 2or a simple example of ho! your brain plays tricks !ith time, look in the mirror at your left eye. (o! shift your ga)e to your right eye. ;our eye movements take time, of course, but you o not see your eyes move. *t is as if the !orl instantly ma e the transition from one vie! to the next. What happene to that little gap in time+ 2or that matter, !hat happens to the ?& millisecon s of arkness you shoul see every time you blink your eyes+ #ottom line: ;our notion of the smooth passage of time is a construction of the brain. =larifying the picture of ho! the brain normally solves timing problems shoul give insight into !hat happens !hen temporal calibration goes !rong, as may happen in the brains of people !ith yslexia. Sensory inputs that are out of sync also contribute to the risk of falls in el erly patients.

). !"y do #rains slee$ and dream?

One of the most astonishing aspects of our lives is that !e spen a thir of our time in the strange !orl of sleep. (e!born babies spen about t!ice that. *t is inor inately ifficult to remain a!ake for more than a full ay'night cycle. *n humans, continuous !akefulness of the nervous system results in mental erangement1 rats eprive of sleep for %& ays ie. ,ll mammals sleep, reptiles an bir s sleep, an voluntary breathers like olphins sleep !ith one brain hemisphere ormant at a time. The evolutionary tren is clear, but the function of sleep is not. The universality of sleep, even though it comes at the cost of time an leaves the sleeper relatively efenseless, suggests a eep importance. There is no universally agree 'upon ans!er, but there are at least three popular -an nonexclusive. guesses. The first is that sleep is restorative, saving an replenishing the bo y3s energy stores. 0o!ever, the high neural activity uring sleep suggests there is more to the story. , secon theory proposes that sleep allo!s the brain to run simulations of fighting, problem solving, an other key actions before testing them out in the real !orl . , thir theory/the one that enjoys the most evi ence/is that sleep plays a critical role in learning an consoli ating memories an in forgetting inconse"uential etails. *n other !or s, sleep allo!s the brain to store a!ay the important stuff an take out the neural trash. 5ecently, the spotlight has focuse on 5$M sleep as the most important phase for locking memories into long'term enco ing. *n one stu y, rats !ere traine to scurry aroun a track for a foo re!ar . The researchers recor e activity in the neurons kno!n as place cells, !hich sho!e istinct patterns of activity epen ing upon the rats3 location on the track. @ater, !hile the rats roppe off into 5$M sleep, the recor ings continue . 4uring this sleep, the rats3 place cells often repeate the exact same pattern of activity that !as seen !hen the animals ran. The correlation !as so close, the researchers claime , that as the animal 6 reame ,7 they coul reconstruct !here it !oul be on the track if it ha been a!ake/an !hether the animal !as reaming of running or stan ing still. The emerging i ea is that information replaye uring sleep might etermine !hich events !e remember later. Sleep, in this vie!, is akin to an off'line practice session. *n several recent experiments, human subjects performing ifficult tasks improve their scores bet!een sessions on consecutive

ays, but not bet!een sessions on the same ay, implicating sleep in the learning process. An erstan ing ho! sleeping an reaming are change by trauma, rugs, an isease/an ho! !e might mo ulate our nee for sleep/is a rich fiel to harvest for future clues.

*. How do t"e s$ecialized systems of t"e #rain integrate wit" one anot"er?
To the nake eye, no part of the brain3s surface looks terribly ifferent from any other part. #ut !hen !e measure activity, !e fin that ifferent types of information lurk in each region of the neural territory. Within vision, for example, separate areas process motion, e ges, faces, an colors. The territory of the a ult brain is as fracture as a map of the countries of the !orl . (o! that neuroscientists have a reasonable i ea of ho! that territory is ivi e , !e fin ourselves looking at a strange assortment of brain net!orks involve !ith smell, hunger, pain, goal setting, temperature, pre iction, an hun re s of other tasks. 4espite their isparate functions, these systems seem to !ork together seamlessly. There are almost no goo i eas about ho! this occurs. (or is it un erstoo ho! the brain coor inates its systems so rapi ly. The slo! spee of spikes -they travel about one foot per secon in axons that lack the insulating sheathing calle myelin. is one hun re 'millionth the spee of signal transmission in igital computers. ;et a human can recogni)e a frien almost instantaneously, !hile igital computers are slo!/an usually unsuccessful/at face recognition. 0o! can an organ !ith such slo! parts operate so "uickly+ The usual ans!er is that the brain is a parallel processor, running many operations at the same time. This is almost certainly true, but !hat slo!s o!n parallel'processing igital computers is the next stage of operations, !here results nee to be compare an eci e upon. #rains are ama)ingly fast at this. So !hile the brain3s ability to o parallel processing is impressive, its ability to rapi ly synthesi)e those parallel processes into a single, behavior'gui ing output is at least as significant. ,n animal running must go left or right aroun a tree1 it cannot o both. There is no special anatomical location in the brain !here information from all the ifferent systems converges1 rather, the speciali)e areas all interconnect !ith one another, forming a net!ork of parallel an recurring links. Someho!, our integrate image of the !orl emerges from this complex labyrinthine net!ork of brain structures. Surprisingly little stu y has been one on large, loopy net!orks like the ones in the brain/probably in part because it is easier to think about brains as ti y assembly lines than as ynamic net!orks.

1+. !"at is consciousness?

Think back to your first kiss. The experience of it may pop into your hea instantly. Where !as that memory before you became conscious of it+ 0o! !as it store in your brain before an after it came into consciousness+ What is the ifference bet!een those states

,n explanation of consciousness is one of the major unsolve problems of mo ern science. *t may not turn out to be a single phenomenon1 nonetheless, by !ay of a preliminary target, let3s think of it as the thing that flickers on !hen you !ake up in the morning that !as not there, in the exact same brain har !are, moments before. (euroscientists believe that consciousness emerges from the material stuff of the brain primarily because even very small changes to your brain -say, by rugs or isease. can po!erfully alter your subjective experiences. The heart of the problem is that !e o not yet kno! ho! to engineer pieces an parts such that the resulting machine has the kin of private subjective experience that you an * take for grante . *f * give you all the Tinkertoys in the !orl an tell you to hook them up so that they form a conscious machine, goo luck. We on3t have a theory yet of ho! to o this1 !e on3t even kno! !hat the theory !ill look like. One of the tra itional challenges to consciousness research is stu ying it experimentally. *t is probable that at any moment some active neuronal processes correlate !ith consciousness, !hile others o not. The first challenge is to etermine the ifference bet!een them. Some clever experiments are making at least a little hea !ay. *n one of these, subjects see an image of a house in one eye an , simultaneously, an image of a co! in the other. *nstea of perceiving a house'co! mixture, people perceive only one of them. Then, after some ran om amount of time, they !ill believe they3re seeing the other, an they !ill continue to s!itch slo!ly back an forth. ;et nothing about the visual stimulus changes1 only the conscious experience changes. This test allo!s investigators to probe !hich properties of neuronal activity correlate !ith the changes in subjective experience. The mechanisms un erlying consciousness coul resi e at any of a variety of physical levels: molecular, cellular, circuit, path!ay, or some organi)ational level not yet escribe . The mechanisms might also be a pro uct of interactions bet!een these levels. One compelling but still speculative notion is that the massive fee back circuitry of the brain is essential to the pro uction of consciousness. *n the near term, scientists are !orking to i entify the areas of the brain that correlate !ith consciousness. Then comes the next step: un erstan ing !hy they correlate. This is the so'calle har problem of neuroscience, an it lies at the outer limit of !hat material explanations !ill say about the experience of being human. ,E-./ED .,/01-E: =an B<enius :illsB #oost ;our #rain :o!er+

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