The knowledge we currently have about the human brain is comparable to the knowledge about the Universe we had in Galileo’s time, said the Novel Prize Torsten Wiesel during a meeting in Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Mr. Wiesel argues that plasticity is a key factor in human brain development as many regions of it need stimuli for their development. Wiesel received the Nobel Prize jointly with Hubel thanks to their work on brain visual processing. They demonstrated that the brain needs to configure itself after birth. i.e., even though no physical problem exists, without stimuli there is no brain development.
Within the framework of ConCiencia program, coordinated by the professor Jorge Mira, Mr. Wiesel talked about the challenges of human brain understanding. When he was asked about the percentage of human brain that we currently understand, he answered that our knowledge of human brain is more or less the same as the knowledge we had about the universe in Galileo’s time. Probably, 90% of the mechanisms in the brain are still unknown. Brain imaging techniques are the main advance in the knowledge of the brain. These techniques allow us to study not only isolated cells but brain processes in general, Wiesel said.
