Anything that requires language, just to take one example, we can’t model in animals. What this means is that although we can learn an enormous amount from studying animals the way we do in the rest of biology and medicine, animal models are ultimately limited. The first, which is really important, is that the human brain is evolutionarily very recent in terms of many of its higher functions. But we were really stymied in terms of getting a deeper understanding, a better picture, for several reasons: With imaging technologies we began some decades ago - though at really still very relatively poor resolution - to get spatial maps of what’s happening in the brain. Using medications that were really discovered by luck, by prepared serendipity using, in more recent years, the few psychotherapies, especially Cognitive Behavioral Therapies, which have been empirically tested, we have been able to help a lot of people manage their symptoms, in some cases to become better stoics. Tragically, for the longest time there wasn't so much we could do about it. Just think about Alzheimer's disease, heroin addiction, major depression, schizophrenia, autism, intellectual disability - these are common conditions in which people can no longer exert reliable, effective agency on their own behalf and therefore society often has to step in for them at great cost and often really great pain. And when the brain gets sick in any way we realize that it exacts an extraordinarily severe toll on the sufferer, on families, on society. The bottom line is the brain is well recognized to be the linchpin of being human in the sense that it is the substrate of thought, emotion, control of behavior, and therefore, undergirds our life trajectories, our actions, our morality. In terms of political will, the question is not why now but why so late? So maybe we can set aside this false interest, this prurient interest in the brain and focus on the serious matters at hand. Nonetheless they're irresistible to the public and then of course it's given rise to a new generation of debunkers - fair enough.
A subset of those may be scientifically addressable questions, but we're a long way from understanding them deeply. Part of the growing public interest in the brain, and certainly much media attention, is a little bit unfortunate because it focuses on people applying tools, such as brain imaging, in ways that are untutored and underpowered but yield interesting - if not really scientifically valid - ideas about say, why a certain person is liberal or conservative, or why a certain person takes risks or is very self-protective. So - Why this? Why now? What's different? Because it was a media blitz, it wasn't based on new science.
We've had a 'decade of the brain' before, in the 1990s. Our conversation, lightly edited and broken down into what seemed to be its natural numbering scheme: He's currently the president-elect of the Society for Neuroscience, and he directs the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, where we spoke, and where he demonstrated a preternatural professorial ability to speak off-the-cuff in structured outlines. Steven Hyman has been the director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the provost of Harvard. Steven Hyman (Maria Nemchuk/Broad Institute) Twitter facebook Email This article is more than 8 years old.
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