Most of what we have learned about the functioning of the living brain has come from extracellular electrical recordings, like the measurement of spikes, LFP, ECoG and EEG signals.

And most analysis of these recordings has been statistical, looking for correlations between the recorded signals and what the animal/human is doing or being exposed to.  

However, starting with the neuron rather than the data, these electrical brain signals can also be computed from biophysics-based forward models, and this is topic of this podcast.