For all our life we've always wondered: what makes us human? A possible answer to that today would be: the neocortex. This evolutionary youngest part of our brain is a nest for such precious mental features as: emotions, reasoning, attention, communication etc. It's true that... click to read more

A supercomputer is made up of millions of repeating modules. Our recent study found that the brain is made up of repeating microcircuits. This intriguing similarity may explain how brains are built to efficiently handle diverse tasks, with "microcolumns" that act like the Lego bricks... click to read more

"A guy needs somebody -- to be near him... A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody."
Of Mice & Men, John Steinbeck. As social creatures, all aspects of our daily lives are powerfully shaped by our social experiences. The social bonds that we... click to read more

"Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future." Elie Wiesel

Memory is essential for animal survival and gives human beings the extraordinary ability to develop consciousness and ultimately the self. The brain mechanisms that allow us... click to read more

The author Tonegawa won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987.

The human brain is composed of over 100 billion electrically-active brain cells (called neurons), and what makes the neuron a special cell type is that it sends out extensions (known as axons) that... click to read more