A Google Map of Our Brains: The Next Chapter in Neuroscience

Scientists in New York City are at the center of President Obama'sbrain research initiative, a $100 million effort to better understand the inner workings of the human noggin."For a lot of the way that different brain regions work together to generate complex functions, we're really stumbling around in the dark," said Dr. Cori Bargmann, a Rockefeller University neuroscientist and co-chair of the project. "The point of the brain initiative is to turn on some lights."

Neon brain (dierk schaefer/flickr/CC-BY-2.0)

"A map is something static, and the whole point of the brain is that it's always moving," Bargmann said. "If you want to think of it as a map at all, you should think of it more as a Google Map that shows where the traffic is moving."