The brain has 80 billion cells and hundreds of regions, making it too complex for any one scientist to study whole. Neuroscientists instead focus on specific questions at different levels, from molecules to behavior, using specialized tools for each scale.
Many levels of neuroscience. 0% of neuroscientists study the entire brain. So I think that people tend to look at neuroscience as a field where we generally explore how the brain is working on a broad scale, like how the entire organ is working. The reason why neuroscientists don't study the whole brain is that there are too many cells and cell types, more importantly. There are 70 billion or 80 billion cells. Lots of different cell types. There are too many brain regions, hundreds of which are— and they're all unique. They all have different cells in them. They all have different functions. It's such a mess. It's so complicated. And then of course there are too many systems, too many neurotransmitters, simply too many levels of study. But the thing that ties all neuroscientists together is that we all ask questions. It's just a matter of what What questions do we ask? And the tools that we use.
