Systems neuroscience is a narrow, specialist method of neuroscience which focuses on the behavior and makeup of nerve cells. Systems neuroscientists are concentrated on the physical structures in the brain how neurons-message-carrying cells which communicate stimuli throughout the brain through electrical impulses-function when grouped into networks. This field sees a lot of overlap with cellular neuroscience, in fact, cellular neuroscience is often the prerequisite area of study. This is because scientists must first understand the individual parts before they can understand how they interact with each other.

Systems neuroscience is such a wide field because all of our nervous infrastructure is composed of 'systems', or groupings of interacting cells, rather than of cells behaving alone. For example, the motor system is responsible for an organism's movement. The motor system starts at the cerebral cortex, itself a complex structure in the brain, and responsible for everything from memory to perception to language, and interlinking with other systems throughout the body. Chains of motor neurons project from the cerebral cortex and descend to the medulla oblongata, a mass of neurons in the brain stem responsible for involuntary actions, like sneezing. At this point, the motor neurons branch out. Some stay in the medulla oblongata, and others crisscross in the spinal cord and travel down to the muscles in the limbs. This crisscrossing means that the right side of your brain controls your left hand, and the left side of your brain controls your right.

Even this extremely simplified description of the motor systems displays the difficulty and intricacy of mapping the nervous system accurately. It is composed of inter-connected, multi-tasking systems of systems working in tandem, just to allow you to walk down the street or type on the keyboard. And this map only shows how the brain is connected to the limbs to allow for movement. It does not describe motor skills, balance, so-called muscle memory, or many other intricacies. This is one reason why we still know comparatively little about the brain, though new breakthroughs are made each year.

To explore these systems, scientists employ various imaging technologies. One example is fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) which detects neural activity by using measuring how blood flows throughout the brain. For example, if a lot of blood flows to one area of the brain when the subject is doing mathematics, scientists can conclude that this area is used for certain kinds of logic and problem-solving. Using biological pathways of the brain and imaging technologies, scientists can figure out the relationships between different systems in the brain.

Systems neuroscience does not directly deal with the psychological aspects of neuroscience, such as behavior or language, as different disciplines of neuroscience specialize in these. However, the effort of systems neuroscientists provides a backing and framework for people like behavioral neuroscientists. By working together, these diverse branches of the field hope to isolate where various human impulses and behaviors originate in the nervous system, as well as how brain architecture influences mental disorders like schizophrenia or depression.

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