A golden age of discovery in neuroscience Developments in
imaging technology, genetics, brain chemistry and computing are
promising fresh insights into the workings of the mind and
mental illness. Our science correspondent Tom Feilden asks what
neuroscience has to say about what it means to be human. "So
this is it. This is our new toy. Not bad for eight million
quid." I'm standing in the control room at the Nuffield
Department of Clinical Neurosciences's Brain Imaging Centre at
the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Looking through a plate
glass window with me, and gesticulating enthusiastically, is the
centre's director, Professor Irene Tracey. On the other side of
the glass is one of the most powerful imaging machines anywhere
in the world. Weighing in at 40 tonnes - and generating a
magnetic field strength of 7 Tesla - its central component, a
huge cylindrical magnet, is so big they had to take the roof off
the building to get it in. End Quote Dr John Williams Wellcome
Trust We're on the cusp of a series