Molecular Neuroscience in the 21 Century: A Personal Perspective.

Neuroscience is inherently interdisciplinary in its quest to explain the brain. Like all biological structures, the brain operates at multiple levels, from nano-scale molecules to meter-scale systems. Here, I argue that understanding the nano-scale organization of the brain is not only helpful for insight into its function, but is a requisite for such insight. I propose that one impediment to a better understanding of the brain is that most of its molecular processes are incompletely understood, and suggest a number of key questions that require our attention so that progress can be achieved in neuroscience beyond a description of the activity of neural circuits.