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Furthermore, the brain, unlike the computer, can repair itself: one area can learn to perform the functions of another in some cases of brain damage. And, unlike the computer, which can be turned off at the flip of a switch, the brain remains continuously active, whether waking or sleeping. It can, like an infinitely repeated image in a hall of mirrors, think about itself as it thinks about itself thinking about itself.
The scientific effort to fathom the miracle of the brain is proceeding on many fronts, often apparently unrelated. Some of the most fascinating yet arcane work in the neurosciences is being done by zoologists like Theodore Bullock, 58, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. He is studying electric fish in order to identify interior pathways of brain communication. That knowledge could lead to an understanding of how a brain communicates within itself. Other apparently tangential but vitally important research is being undertaken by Nobel-Prizewinning Immunologist Gerald Edelman, 44, of New York's Rockefeller University. Edelman notes that the immune system (TIME, March 19), which enables the body to defend itself against disease, is capable of memory. He has suggested that mechanisms similar to those that enable immunologically active cells to recognize
bes and other foreign material may also play a role in the brain's own memory system. The mechanisms could also conceivably tell cells where they fit into the "wiring diagram" of the brain while the organ is developing.
Most neuroscientists are conducting their research on cellular and subcellular levels, figuring that only by understanding how individual neurons work can they understand how the brain it self functions. "Studying the brain is like looking at a building called a bank and trying to figure out what it's for," says Dr. David Bodian, professor and director of the department of anatomy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. "You can get some idea of its function by watching people go in and out. You can get an even better idea if you go inside and ob serve more closely."
The most advanced and exciting brain research now being conducted is directed toward discovering how the brain perceives, processes and stores in formation. Some scientists confine their work to only one area at a time; the brain is too complex and knowledge still too limited to do otherwise. Others, like Professor Hans-Lukas Teuber, 57, who heads M.I.T.'s department of psychology, insist on studying the three aspects together. "The way we perceive pat terns, whether through sight, touch or other senses," he says, "is intimately linked to the way we pattern our skilled movements, and both perception and movement inevitably involve problems of memory."
Teuber believes that such knowledge is essential for an understanding of high er brain functions, which intrigue him far more than investigations into so-called psychic phenomena. "The mys tery lies where we least expect it: in sen sory rather than extrasensory perception," he says. "What fascinates me is the way that you and I are able to sit opposite each other and make sounds that we receive, decode, process and then use as a basis for making more sounds. Now that is a real mystery."