Neural Coding

Every time you do anything—get up to go for a walk, pick up the phone, drive, etc.—the brain searches for the pertinent data it has on that action. It then sends signals to the appropriate muscles and body components to carry out the task based on what it already knows. The neural code, a foundational set of guidelines that govern how neurons act, is how it knows how to do it.

Though people know it's not in one location, people currently know very little about how - or even where - neurons encode that information. Numerous brain regions are activated even during relatively straightforward, linear actions like picking up an object, according to an increasing number of studies. For instance, it has been discovered that many other brain regions that ought to have nothing to do with speech are also active when you speak, despite the fact that Broca's area of the brain is thought to be responsible for speaking. In reality, it appears that the way and locations where information is stored in the brain are completely random.