ABSTRACT
It is hard to begin a chapter about the brain without waxing lyrical. The brain is the physical organ that makes all our mental life possible. It enables us to read these words, and to consider thoughts that we have never considered before-or even to create thoughts that no human has considered before. This book will scratch the surface of how this is all possible, but the purpose of this chapter is more mundane. It offers a basic guide to the structure of the brain, starting from a description of neurons and working up to a description of how these are organized into different neuroanatomical systems. The emphasis is on the human brain rather than the brain of other species.
