Greg Gage is on a mission to make brain science accessible to all, and he does a great job of showcasing what he can do in this extremely exciting and a bit creepy TED video:

What's really awesome is that he made all this with an inexpensive kit that you can almost DIY at home. A bit of background on Greg: he is a cofounder of a company called Backyard Brains:
"We often wanted to show real "spiking" activity to students, but this was impossible due to the high cost of equipment. By using off-the-shelf electronics, we designed kits that could provide insight into the inner workings of the nervous system."
You can check them out and find out more about their work here.