meritocrat

I know little of medicine or neurology, but what exactly is the extent of knowledge regarding the human brain?

scigirl

Um, could you be more specific? I could teach you everything I just learned in my medical neurology class, but I don't have *that* much time to post!

scigirl

Curtis

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for either, but...

We know what it looks like (duh).
We understand the basic units of the brain (neurons) well. Also, with that knowledge, we can understand how certain drugs interact with the brain.
We have a reasonable understanding of how clusters of neurons interact and behave.
We understand that the brain is generally structured to where certain tasks are done in a regional areas. Vision is mostly processed in the visual cortex at the back of your brain, for example.
We've mapped out much of the brain's general task regions, so to speak. Broca's for speech, etc.
The brain is known to be very plastic, especially when young. If part of your brain is damaged while you're a child, there's a good chance some other part of your brain will pick up the slack, so to speak.
We understand the general process of how one goes from an embryo to a baby, nervous system and all. Very complicated, by the way.

There's a general idea of some of the things we've learned so far!