The brain is a powerful tool used to achieve amazing feats. There have been several significant advances in neuroscience and artificial brain research in the past two decades. This article is a review of such advances, ranging from the concepts of connectionism, to neural network architectures and high-dimensional representations. There have also been advances in biologically inspired cognitive architectures of which we will cite a few. We will be positioning relatively specific models in a much broader perspective, while comparing and contrasting their advantages and weaknesses. The projects presented are targeted to model the brain at different levels, utilizing different methodologies.