14 DAY TRIAL // Whether or not you think that the brain is the origin of our actions, or just an antenna for some metaphysical higher self, the brain is the best bet we have to truly understand how thoughts and reflexes form.
Going by that logic, scientists from all over the world have been trying to understand how neurons in the brain work and interact.
Apparently, MIT managed to pull it off, having revealed a system that produces a complete 3D neural activity map.
A light field microscope made it possible, as it refracts light to create a 3D image and can, with some optimizations, look at the electrical pulses of each neuron.
The observation can be done with an accuracy of up to 1 millisecond.
So far, the brains of zebrafish larvas and of C. elegans worms were studied this way, and out on video. Not exactly as grand as seeing a shark's cortex or a full elephant's brain in action, but everything has to start somewhere.
Alas, MIT will have to add some serious hardware and improve the software before anything too advanced can be truly replicated. There's a huge difference between the 302 neurons of a C. elegans worm and the 100 billion of a human brain.
Not that the MIT team didn't try to at least portray a makeshift 3D representation of one, as the video below shows.
