A Conversation with the Brain: Can We Speak Its Language?

For a number of centuries, scientists, engineers, psychologists or philosophers have tried to understand how the brain works. With nearly 100 billion neurons and over 100 trillion synapses in the human brain, the question remains as one of the greatest challenges of all times. While there is an extensive body of knowledge on how a single neuron behaves, there are also important gaps in the understanding of the neural code and the way the brain handles neural information; these gaps are limiting our ability to speak and listen to the language of the brain. The recording and stimulation technologies developed during the last few decades allow for interfacing with an increasing number of cells simultaneously. This is of particular relevance in bionic applications such as visual prosthesis, cochlear implants or artificial limbs among others. Thus, the development of these devices is progressing rapidly allowing the deaf to hear again, the blind to recover sight, or the disabled to gain functional mobility.

This Research Topic includes engineering ways of reading and sending information to the brain, the study of the physiological information exchange that occurs within the brain, and how the brain understands artificially encoded neural information. Therefore, this collection of articles encompasses a variety of fields from neural interfaces to brain plasticity with the aim of restoring function or providing medical treatment.

Original research and review articles depicting the neural code of the brain, devising new ways of sending more meaningful messages to the brain, or enhancing its ability to cope with artificially encoded neural information are welcome.