Measurement challenges in trying to understand our brain

I present here the briefest of summaries of what is known about the workings of the brain to an audience of non-neuroscientists. The intention is to motivate those intimately involved in instrumentation and measurement to collaborate in improving the techniques available nowadays and that will allow Man, in a not too distant future, to understand its own brain. I focus on four of the most promising methods highlighting what they can tell us about the brain and pointing out the shortcomings that need to be addressed: magnetic resonance imaging, magnetoencephalography, two-photon excitation microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.