In fact, the latter's no mean feat either. Creating machine systems that can do the same thing has so far eluded robot designers, says Tomaso Poggio, a faculty colleague of Pinker's. At the root of the brain's abilities, from orchestrating the retrieval of a coffee cup to composing a symphony, is the neuron. And a single neuron can have 1,000 or more separate links, mostly with other neurons. Overall, it's estimated there are at least one trillion connections in the brain, and maybe a lot more.
Neurons also seem surprisingly flexible.
Mriganka Sur, chairman of brain and cognitive sciences, has found that when brain regions usually dedicated to hearing are called on to handle visual signals instead, the regions' structures start to look like those in visual regions. Babies' brains are more dynamic and flexible than those of adults. But new links commonly form in stroke victims' brains. There's also evidence from new work at MIT that some growth is occurring in adult brains almost all the time. The recently announced McGovern Institute for Brain Research, sponsored by alumnus Patrick McGovern and his wife, Lore Harp McGovern, means MIT is poised to make major new contributions to neuroscience.