Some of the yet unsolved problems of neuroscience include:
- Consciousness: What is the neuronal basis of subjective experience, cognition, wakefulness, alertness, arousal, and attention? How is the "hard problem of consciousness" solved? What is its function?
- Perception: How does the brain transfer sensory information into coherent, private percepts? What are the rules by which perception is organized? What are the features/objects that constitute our perceptual experience of internal and external events? How are the senses integrated? What is the relationship between subjective experience and the physical world?
- Learning and memory: Where do our memories get stored and how are they retrieved again? How can learning be improved? What is the difference between explicit and implicit memories? What molecule is responsible for synaptic tagging?
- Neuroplasticity: How plastic is the mature brain?
- Development and evolution: How and why did the brain evolve? What are the molecular determinants of individual brain development?
- Free will, particularly the Neuroscience of free will
- Sleep: Why do we dream? What are the underlying brain mechanisms? What is its relation to anesthesia?
- Cognition and decisions: How and where does the brain evaluate reward value and effort (cost) to modulate behavior? How does previous experience alter perception and behavior? What are the genetic and environmental contributions to brain function?
- Language: How is it implemented neurally? What is the basis of semantic meaning?
- Diseases: What are the neural bases (causes) of mental diseases like psychotic disorders (e.g. mania, schizophrenia), Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, or addiction? Is it possible to recover loss of sensory or motor function?
- Movement: How can we move so controllably, even though the motor nerve impulses seem haphazard and unpredictable?
- Computational theory of mind: What are the limits of understanding thinking as a form of computing?
Famous quotes containing the words unsolved problems, unsolved and/or problems:
“The child knows only that he engages in play because it is enjoyable. He isn’t aware of his need to play—a need which has its source in the pressure of unsolved problems. Nor does he know that his pleasure in playing comes from a deep sense of well-being that is the direct result of feeling in control of things, in contrast to the rest of his life, which is managed by his parents or other adults.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Play permits the child to resolve in symbolic form unsolved problems of the past and to cope directly or symbolically with present concerns. It is also his most significant tool for preparing himself for the future and its tasks.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“The truth of the thoughts that are here set forth seems to me unassailable and definitive. I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems. And if I am not mistaken in this belief, then the second thing in which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)