New Research States Brain Is an Interconnected Network, Contrary to Top-Down Structure
According to a BBC News article, Larry Swanson and Richard Thompson, from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, recently published research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, which may lead to a full map of the human nervous system. Swanson and Thompson state that the brain appears to be a vastly interconnected network, much like the internet, which contradicts the 19th-Century "top-down" view of brain structure.
Swanson and Thompson isolated a small section of a rat's brain in the nucleus accumbens - a brain region long associated with pleasure and reward. Their technique hinges on the injection of "tracers" at precise points in the brain tissue. These are molecules that do not interfere with the movement of signals across the tissue, but can be illuminated and identified using a microscope.
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