For non-experts, what is neuroscience, and what are some the major issues in the field?
Neuroscience is the multidisciplinary study of how brains are organized and how they work. Thus, neuroscientists are a truly diverse group of investigators and scholars. Neuroscience includes efforts to understand how genes influence the development, organization and function of the brain—how a brain is put together, how nerve cells are arranged in circuits to process information, and how those circuits control behavior. Neuroscience also includes efforts to understand brain diseases—what happens when the brain is not optimally assembled, or when the brain begins to change in ways that compromise behavior. The questions that neuroscientists ask in their laboratories include how specific molecules cause a nerve cell to change its electrical activity, how social interactions in humans change perception or patterns of brain activity, or nearly philosophical questions of how the human brain establishes essential states like consciousness. While the breadth of neuroscience seems daunting, i
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