NINCDS faces 'exploding' field of neuroscience

Abstract

It started with Plato, or perhaps even earlier. And, ever since, philosophers have discussed who are, how think, how remember, and most important, what the organ that permits all this really is. Until about 15 years ago, says Murray Goldstein, DO, MPH, director of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS), these indeed were fundamentally philosophical questions. Today, many of these questions are still unanswered. But, says Goldstein, we have the tools in neuroscience by which can begin to dissect [them] into researchable problems. He says—and the growing number of publications seem to attest—that this area has captured the attention of the scientific community, both new and established, and is expanding on all frontiers. With the proliferation of research discoveries about speech, language, hearing, and the functions and dysfunctions of the brain and other parts of the nervous system, it's extraordinarily difficult