the.com/neuroscience
the brain studying itself, an organ writing its own autopsy while still beating.
means The scientific study of the nervous system — how brains and nerves are built, how they fire, and how they give rise to thought, sensation, and behavior.
from A modern compound, stitched from Greek 'neuron' — originally 'sinew' or 'string,' the word ancient anatomists used before they understood nerves as something distinct — joined to 'science,' from Latin 'scientia,' knowledge. The discipline crystallized under that name in the mid-20th century, when fields that had drifted apart — anatomy, physiology, psychology — were gathered back under one roof to study the nervous system as a whole.
- weight
- Three pounds of fat runs your entire existence.
- speed
- Signals fire at 268 mph between neurons.
- connections
- More synapses than stars in the Milky Way.
- power draw
- Runs the whole show on 20 watts.
- strange limit
- The brain itself feels no pain.
human connectome project — maps all ~86 billion neurons and their connections in the human brain, started 2009
allen brain atlas — 3d map of mouse brain gene expression at cellular resolution, allen institute for brain science
optogenetics — karl deisseroth's 2005 technique using light to control genetically modified neurons, revolutionized neuroscience