Elusive Cures: Why Neuroscience Hasn’t Solved Brain Disorders―and How We Can Change That

Rust (neuroscience, Univ. of Pennsylvania) presents an overview of what is known about the human brain and the enormous challenges that remain in treating neurological disorders. She starts by exploring the history of neuroscience and key discoveries related to the complexity of treating brain dysfunction. Considering the progress made in the past three decades in understanding how the human brain works, she questions why there aren’t more treatments available for common conditions such as depression, epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis. Meanwhile, neurological conditions that have been studied for decades (e.g., Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s) often have treatments for symptoms but not cures. Rust explains the successes and drawbacks of the bench-to-bedside pathway (that is, from lab research to clinical practice) for new neurological treatments and the current focus on molecular medicine. She also makes the case that comparative work on other complex human systems might provide a new grand plan for predicting and controlling brain functions.