Comments and General Discussion on “The Anatomical Problem Posed by Brain Complexity and Size: A Potential Solution”

This article gathers together different opinions on the current status and future directions of the study of the brain, taking as a working document the article “The anatomical problem posed by brain complexity and size: a potential solution” http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnana.2015.00104/full. These commentaries are followed by a section dedicated to a general discussion of the issues raised, in which all contributors participate. The authors who have contributed to this article are listed in alphabetical order. As the reader will see, there are different points of view and of course there are many other aspects that would need further discussion that have been raised by other scientists who did not participate directly. For example, Peter Somogyi made the following comment (personal communication): [“Anatomy” is a discipline and not a biological entity that exists in nature. Hence the brain or its cells do not have anatomy; we study them with anatomical methods (usually using microscopes) while we carry out “anatomical analysis.” The brain, its nuclei, cells, and their parts are the biological entities which several disciplines study, preferably together, providing a unified description and explanation of them. We must be clear about this, and avoid terms like “anatomical properties,” “physiological properties,” or “biochemical properties” as if these somehow existed in isolation. The separate disciplines, which developed historically due to the limitation of individual human brain capacity and short life span leading to methodological and conceptual specialization, are based on sets of methods, but study the same indivisible biological entity. E.g., the synaptic current recorded by electrophysiological methods flows through the membrane that we see in the electron microscope or with the help of antibodies to synaptic ion channels in the light microscope. Accordingly, the “anatomical problem” exists because of inadequate scientific rigor in addition to methodological limitations that are often not understood, not because of “brain complexity”.] This is just an example of the many possible different points of view when dealing with the subject of the anatomy of the brain. Thus, this article is not intended to be comprehensive, and the unavoidable limitations in the selection of comments, data, and their interpretation reflect, in many cases, the personal views and interests of the authors.