What the Future Has in Store for Your Brain

For this week's Please Explain, we're unraveling the mysteries of the human brain and heading to the absolute frontiers of neuroscience. We will discuss the spectacular technological advances that will enable us to map the more than eighty-five billion neurons in the brain, as well as the challenges that lie ahead in understanding the anticipated deluge of data and the prospects for building working simulations of the human brain. Gary Marcus is Director of the NYU Center for Language and Music, and Professor of Psychology at New York University. Ned Block is the Silver Professor of Philosophy, Psychology and Neural Science at New York University. Dr. Marcus's new book, The Future of the Brain: Essays by the World's Leading Neuroscientists, features an essay by Dr. Block arguing that high resolution images of the brain are not sufficient for a true understanding of the mind.