List of unsolved problems in neuroscience

Some of the yet unsolved problems of neuroscience include:

• Consciousness: What is the neuronal basis of subjective experience, cognition, wakefulness, alertness, arousal and attention? How is the "hard problem of consciousness" solved? What is its function?
• Perception: How does the brain transfer sensory information into coherent, private percepts? What are the rules by which perception is organized? What are the features/objects that constitute our perceptual experience of internal and external events? How are the senses integrated? What is the relationship between subjective experience and the physical world?
• Learning and memory: Where do our memories get stored and how are they retrieved again? How can learning be improved? What is the difference between explicit and implicit memories? What molecule is responsible for synaptic tagging?
• Neuroplasticity: How plastic is the mature brain?
• Development and evolution: How and why did the brain evolve? What are the molecular determinants of individual brain development?
• Free will, particularly the Neuroscience of free will
• Sleep: Why do we dream? What are the underlying brain mechanisms? What is its relation to anesthesia?
• Cognition and decisions: How and where does the brain evaluate reward value and effort (cost) to modulate behavior? How does previous experience alter perception and behavior? What are the genetic and environmental contributions to brain function?
• Language: How is it implemented neurally? What is the basis of semantic meaning?
• Diseases: What are the neural bases (causes) of mental diseases like psychotic disorders (e.g. mania, schizophrenia), Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease or addiction? Is it possible to recover loss of sensory or motor function?
• Movement: How can we move so controllably, even though the motor nerve impulses seem haphazard and unpredictable?

External links

• The Human Brain Project Homepage
• David Eagleman (August 2007). "10 Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain". Discover Magazine. http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/unsolved-brain-mysteries. 
• Dennett D (April 2001). "Are we explaining consciousness yet?". Cognition 79 (1-2): 221–37. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(00)00130-X. PMID 11164029. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0010-0277(00)00130-X.