“For cancer you can remove the tumour, and we can grow these cancer cells in a dish. If you find a small molecule that stops uncontrolled proliferation of these cells, you have a potential drug for cancer,” said Pasca. “In contrast with that, we don’t have direct access to brain cells, you can’t do a brain biopsy. Therefore, in studying mental disorders, we look at postmortem brains. That’s a problem for me as a neuroscientist because these neurons can’t fire,” he said.