Integrative neuroscience

A fundamental impediment to an 'Integrative Neuroscience' is the sense that scientists building models at one particular scale often see that scale as the epicentre of all brain function. This fragmentation has begun to change in a very distinctive way. Multidisciplinary efforts have provided the impetus to break down the boundaries and encourage a freer exchange of information across disciplines and scales. Despite huge deficits of knowledge, sufficient facts about the brain already exist, for an Integrative Neuroscience to begin to lift us clear of the jungle of detail, and shed light upon the workings of the brain as a system. Integrations of brain theory can be tested using judicious paradigm designs and measurement of temporospatial activity reflected in brain imaging technologies. However, to test realistically these new hypotheses requires consistent findings of the normative variability in very large numbers of control subjects, coupled with high sensitivity and specificity of findings in psychiatric disorders. Most importantly, these findings need to be analyzed and modeled with respect to the fundamental mechanisms underlying these measures. Without this convergence of theory, databases, and methodology (including across scale physiologically realistic numerical models), the clinical utility of brain imaging technologies in psychiatry will be significantly impeded. The examples provided in this paper of integration of theory, temporospatial integration of neuroimaging technologies, and a numerical simulation of brain function, bear testimony to the ongoing conversion of an Integrative Neuroscience from an exemplar status into reality.