If you want to understand and predict the behavior of your young daughter, explains neurobiologist Christopher Fiorillo, you might observe how she reacts to various environmental factors. Then, using a statistical analysis, you might try to determine a relationship between her behavior and these external factors.

However, an easier and quicker way might be simply to try to understand what the child herself knows about her world.

This idea, known to psychologists as the theory of mind, is the basis for a new theory of brain function proposed by Fiorillo, a professor at Stanford University. His model attempts to provide an understanding of the nervous system by looking at the world from a neuron’s perspective.