Abstract
Biological systems are complex with distinct characteristics such as nonlinearity, adaptability, and self-organization. Biomedical research has helped in advancing our understanding of certain components the human biology but failed to illustrate the behavior of the biological systems within. This failure can be attributed to the use of the linear approach, which reduces the system to its components then study each component in isolation. This approach assumes that the behavior of complex systems is the result of the sum of the function of its components. The complex systems approach requires the identification of the components of the system and their interactions with each other and with the environment. Within neurosurgery, this approach has the potential to advance our understanding of the human nervous system and its subsystems.