Magical cranial tour

Decorated neuroscientist Sir Richard Faull is retiring after a lifetime in brain research. What has he learnt about the miracles and mysteries of the human brain?

- DONNA CHISHOLM

In November 2009, to mark the launch of the Centre for Brain Research at Wai-papa Taumata Rau the University of Auckland, I asked its founding director, Professor Richard Faull, what key questions he wanted to answer.

On his desk that day were two plastinated brains: the first was a human brain with its mass of folds and wrinkles displaying just some of its terrifying complexity. Alongside it sat a smooth and tiny rat brain, showing why the rat was doomed to forever run on a wheel but never to invent it.

Faull listed four things he most wanted to understand. "It would be great to know what is critical to maintaining healthy brain cells so they never degenerate," he said. "I would love to know how all the parts of the brain interact to produce perfect movements. I would love to be able to understand the cellular basis for memory and personality. And I would love to know how we could utilise and stimulate our brains to prevent and stop brain disease and cultivate more new brain cells."

They were dreams, he said. "But here, we foster dreams."

On December 1, the neuroscientist, knighted in 2017 for his decades of achievement in brain research, retires as the centre's director. It's time to ask: does he finally have the answers he sought?

Intriguingly, his answers are more holistic than scientific, prefaced by a plea that we understand the nature of the beast we are dealing with.

"Everyone says, 'Oh, have you got a cure for this? Have you got a cure for that?' I've gained the most wonderful respect for the human brain. Probably the most important thing I have learnt is the diversity and the incredible beauty in all its functions.