Basic neurobiology

The brain receives, processes and passes on information. These operations are performed by chemical and electrical signalling in and between nerve cells. Elucidation of the signalling processes is therefore the basis for being able to understand the physical mechanisms of brain function.

All brain functions are performed by interactions between specialised nerve cells in specialised cell groups. These groups constitute the brain's functional networks.

There are neural networks for the different senses, for controlling 
movements, for language comprehension, indeed for all the brain functions we know of. Although the same molecular signalling processes are used in different neural networks, each network is specialised to perform its own particular function.

Thus, each network consists of a number of types of nerve cells that are distinguished from each other by their particular mix of signalling processes. The cells are also interconnected in a function-specific architecture.

The long-term goal and major challenge for basic neurobiology is to obtain an coherent understanding of the relations between molecular and cellular signalling mechanisms, the activity of the neural networks, and brain function. In short, the physical basis of information processing in the brain. This is one of the challenges that will be addressed by this research priority area.