Mind, soul, personality: whatever you call it, most people agree that their memories, thoughts, and perceptions reside in the brain. Yet for all its importance, the brain has been notoriously difficult to understand. The mind’s elusiveness is not for lack of trying: neuroscientists have been slicing, dicing and examining the brain for decades. Yet we still know frustratingly little about it.
Part of the challenge in understanding the brain lies in its structure: 100 billion neurons that are connected to each other by 10,000 times as many connections, the jungle of our densely packed neural wires run millions of miles in our brains. Scientists believe it is precisely in these connections that our soul is encoded – the way we understand the world, reflect on our experiences, feel sorrow and joy, accumulate memories, and decide how and when to act. If we understood the way our neurons connect – our connectome – we would understand ourselves.
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