been that strange kid who returned home
from a family holiday with a collection
of various maps some from places I
visited and something I picked up in a
reception a hotel I would have homage to
my suitcases and bags looking for all
the maps that I collected carefully
placing them one by one in a box I’ve
been hoarding master bedroom for 17
years the concept of maps always
fascinated me from a young age I would
stare at them in detail looking at the
way the minds connected villages to
villages and cities cities but I would
always wonder why something with the
with every reduced world map the
elements become more and more intricate
a lot of us to build a greater
understanding of the world we live in
modern maps are for me besides the maps
were before Anaximander a Greek
photographer to Val the first zone map
in his 6th century BC he believed in
that the world was cylindrical
constructed a map with the outline of
all discovered land in three main
continents Europe Libya and Asia we now
know that Europe is not mistaken a
semicircle
another art is not cylindrical but we do
not have that before on a positive note
at least it looks absolutely perfect
most of us like we have maps of major
cities like New York and London engraved
into our brains with one quick google we
can find that of the floating chunk of
ice which makes up Antarctica and the
changes in its shelf from 1994 to 2012
we have new orbital maps to show the
positions of each one of silence 62
moons
we even have new maps which relocate
massive galaxies and distant black holes
27,000 light years away but we didn’t
have them before scientists are
currently embarking on a journey to
accurately map this but how many of us
can identify what it is that’s right
the human brain made up of four main
lobes of neural connections running from
every single edge neurons are the basic
work units of the brain yet map with no
connections is a fatass beyond the
limits of complexity the thing is we
know so little about the human brain and
when I say so little I mean so little I
would make them a figure right here on
the spot and say we know less than 1% of
all available knowledge but we don’t
even know how much there is out there to
begin with
I mean how can we say we know 1% if we
have no idea what a hundred percent
looks like we have mapped the skeletal
muscle of the systems of the human body
today with you but we have yet to map
the brain to the same unprecedented
detail we have not man-made and
two features on their surface arguably
the most important organ in the body the
reason we think breathe move and love we
know relatively nothing about our brain
and how it works
the human brain has only just begun to
discover itself the first maps of
continent Africa was simply an outline
of banging States with a few major areas
such as Congo and Cyprus ancient
European cartographers simply did not
know what was inside Africa not knowing
any better they produced a map of the
outline of a desert with a few major
areas but now in our other lightest
mathema breeding has been congruent for
the progress of mapping the earth
because of the simple fact that we have
to start from somewhere
20 years ago will you the outline of the
brain today we have a much deeper
neuroscientist Matthew glass no one said
Matthew the brain is like known as such
a thing as Europe existed but never
knowing is made up of individual
countries each with their own unique
features we now know that Ihram is made
up of 50 countries 26 major lakes and
1,350 to do various you can fact check
on that so what is a brain that actually
look like this is a human connector a
connection is a comprehensive map of all
neuron connections
that is a map of a hundred billion
individual neurons the vole these
neurons say in our brain is a transfer
messages from one end to the other and
all around the body but only eight years
ago the human connectome project started
the United States with a to accurately
map the brain to the same unprecedented
detail we have nine creatures on the
Earth’s surface
today this is what we have to look at
beautiful right the connections between
neurons allow us to think really moving
reacts basically they allow us to be who
we are
so if neurons are so important how come
the journey to map them only began less
than a decade ago because the difference
between mapping the brain among the
earth is the idea of permanence or are
talking about the human brain the lack
of permanence our brains have plastic
quality allowing them to adapt to new
changes not only this but everything’s
back to the millisecond that passes a
messenger sent between a pair of neurons
and every fraction of a millisecond
later a different messages sent between
the same two heroes it would be like
having to create a comprehensive map of
New York see but need to know the
whereabouts of each individual every
single fraction of a millisecond not
only lives but it would be like having
to know what each individual’s thinking
and feeling and how they’re expressing
their feeling
to others every single faction of a
millisecond in that sense mapping the
earth undermines the complexity of that
mother brain so that we know X percent
more about the brain than we did eight
years ago an exquisite more than we did
eight years before that because our
brains the mapping our brain is like
having but the world’s largest bundle of
wires and only just magic entirely if we
know the layout of the brain we can
start to understand the function if we
build a breezy flying map of how we
created in the discovery of scientific
knowledge because your brains like
photography we have to start from
somewhere and that starting point is
maps trying to navigate yourself in one
side of cloud to the other is a
pointless task without a map trying to
identify the individual components of
the brain which make us who we are is a
pointless task without a map because
mass make life so simple not only can we
see nature in science we can also see
science in nature our outline of our
brain is like the way in America’s new
forms with mountains and river valleys
before many loads are like four
continents with neuron bundles like
major cities but the connections between
the neurons
I like buses carry passengers down the
highway between the brain not only
allows us to identify how our brain
works effectively it also allows us to
identify why you sometimes doesn’t
scientists theorized that mental
problems such as obsessive-compulsive
disorder and attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder OCD and ADHD an
appalling genetic but also rely on the
brain
very transverse messages if we precisely
identify the functions of the brain we
can identify where they go wrong and
hopefully we can prevent them from doing
so mapping the brain has and will allow
us to delve deeper to scientific
knowledge and hopefully to help those in
statistician George box once said all
models are wrong but some are useful and
neuron mapping is the most useful place
to start in the fight to understand the
human brain [Applause]