How a Periodic Table of Brains Could Revolutionize Neuroscience

Between your ears sits perhaps the most complex piece of biological machinery on the planet: an all-in-one computer, simulator, and creation device that operates out of a squishy, folded gray mass. And scientists aren't quite sure how it works. Gül Dölen, assistant professor of neuroscience at the Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins, thinks that neuroscientists might need take a step back in order to better understand this organ, which evolved in various forms in nearly every species of animal on Earth. Slicing a few brains apart or taking a few MRIs won't be enough to get to the bottom of how these organs function. Instead, it might require a comparative approach; the most advanced catalog ever created.