Five things we got wrong about the brain

It is often said that if the brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t. 

That view is pessimistic: philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have made enormous strides in describing and explaining the brain’s workings. But there have been some false starts and dead ends along the way, and many debunked theories continue to linger in the popular imagination despite having no basis in reality.

Read our comic to discover five things we have got wrong about the brain.