The latest “Science Ink” provides a closer look at the tattoo of Gabriel Pato, a Brazilian biologist. Per Zimmer’s post, the message of his tattoo is simple: the brain is a network.
Neurons send signals to thousands of other neurons, and it is the number and the strength of those connections from which our thoughts emerge. There is no single humunculus-like neuron in which a person’s mind resides. There is not even a single neuron for memories, or for smells, or for joy. Instead, our perceptions flow into layered networks, and out of those network come responses. If you like too far into the brain, you lose the forest for the trees.
Check out more tattoos in “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed” by Carl Zimmer.
Carl ZimmerPosts By This Contributor
