I am going to come clean. I have no idea what is going on in the human brain. I know I have been shouting out into the black hole that is the internet about it for a few months now, but I have no clue.
Don’t get me wrong, I have learned so much over the course of this class. I know so much more about the brain than I did in August, but the human brain presents one of those systems that leaves me feeling like the more I learn the less I know.
As a chemist I like linear processes. For instance, A and B when placed together under the correct circumstances make C, is something I like. Mmm isn’t that nice? As long as the conditions are correct A and B should, in theory, always make C. I think as a society we really like this. If something seems like it should work it must be the correct path to take, that is why the middle east has just needed more American weapons to achieve peace over the last thirty years, sorry, my brain just really wanted to add that.
That is not how the human brain is, it’s just not. A and B don’t make C, hell A probably affects both B and C in ways we don’t understand, but we know it depends on D and leads to increased levels of Ψ which through pathway X somehow makes the levels of A different and somewhere along the line it causes us to want to sniff the undersides of stranger’s shoes.
This is how I feel about almost every topic we covered. Sure there are little victories, like aping out a pathway here, or understanding a downstream implication there, but for the most part it is confusion. We don’t understand how the brain works. We are just crudely groping around in the darkness hoping the next thing we grab gives us some astounding insight into a terrible disease.
This is how I honestly feel and if anyone tells you they know for certain something about how our brain works, they are lying to you. They might be able to describe a pattern or link together parts of an issue, but they can’t explain anything in complete detail beginning to end with all of the connections and implications related to whatever pathway they are talking about.
This isn’t to say researching the brain is futile, I mean the opposite. Better understanding of our own brains will have wide sweeping implications for health and I think spirituality of our entire species. We just aren’t there yet and I don’t think we should pretend we are. There is so much left to understand, so much left to explore. I am not going to pretend I know anything for certain. Let’s go find the answers.
I want to reiterate that the purpose of this post is not to disparage the class or the field of neuroscience. I just want to explain how the class left me with a general sense of despair and overall confusion about what I am supposed to do with my newfound knowledge of my own brain. Part of me thinks I should be concerned about my inevitable gradual metal decline, but then again on the other hand, what do you do? Just keep livin’ I suppose.
Neurochemistry: what I know for certain
