A little extra brainpower is always handy to have. And while you’re busy exploring the Mind Flayer Colony in the twilight hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 Act 2, a little brain puzzle can lead to a helpful boon if you look for it. Here’s how to solve the brain puzzle in BG3.

Where to find the brain puzzle in BG3

The brain puzzle is located in the Necrotic Laboratory area of the Mind Flayer Colony at coordinates (X: 741, Y:-120). You might want to use one of your limited short rests of the area before heading in, however�ಌ�. Things get a little spicy when you open the fleshy doors of this lab.

More specifically, you’ll find a horde of undead enemies here, including zombies, Winged Horrors, and a Death Shepherd. There are a lot of them, too, so don’t expect a quick battle unless you’ve got a lot of AoE attacks ready to unleash.

Baldur’s Gate 3 brain puzzle solution

The goal of the Necrotic Laboratory’s brain puzzle is to take each of the four node types and connect them to their pair. Starting with the four Reason, Speech, Memory, and Emotion points closest to the terminal, you’ll use various neural nodes to develop paths, connecting them with their counterparts on the opposite side of the brain. However, they can’t intersect, so you’ll need to find four separate paths that don’t interfere with each other.

Of the four, the most linear path is the purple Reason node. While it veers off to the right slightly, it’s mostly a straight line compared to the other three that jump around the brain. Emotion is in a similar situation, but it makes a greater jump to the left side before mostly sticking to the bottom.

Although you could route this out in a few ways, it’s easy to have your paths run into each other. You ultimately have more nodes than you need to work with as you link from one side to the other. My main tip is to keep an eye on nodes that only have one input. Look for nodes that only have those and create paths for them, then work around with the others.

Here’s my finished puzzle, if you’re really stumped. It’s not too difficult, but a fun little logic game.

The key to making this puzzle easier to navigate, especially with a controller, is to press L3 on PlayStation or LS on Xbox to enable camera controls. Without these, you won’t be able to move the brain puzzle nodes. Doing this on PC is easier, as you can freely use WASD to move your camera, QE to rotate, and your mouse to drag the puzzle nodes around their paths. However, you can press O on PC for a🦂 top♛-down view if you need a different perspective.

Necrotic Laboratory brain puzzle rewards

Once you’ve linked it all together, a door in the back will open up, and you’ll receive part one of your prize:

• Blade of Oppressed Souls sword
• Circlet of Mental Anguish
• Braindrain Gloves
• Waking Mind

While the armor and weapon are the main benefits of completing this puzzle, you’ll also want to pick up the Waking Mind for an extra buff through the Slack-Skinned Head. There’s also a wall carving you can interact with for lore if you enjoy learning more about BG3’s world.

First up, the Blade of Oppressed Souls. This sword is especially useful for your longsword-wielding party members. While it doesn’t have any major perks, it does boast some helpful stats:

• Versatile Longsword
• 1d10 (1d8) Slashing + 1d4 Psychic Damage
• Weapon Enchantment +1

It’s worth picking up if you need a new sword or want to take advantage of bonus psychic damage. It’s not the best weapon BG3 has to offer, but it isn’t the worst, either.

Similarly, looting the skeleton on the ground will give you the Circlet of Mental Anguish with the Psychic Leech passive. While it’s equipped, you’ll regain between one to four HP any time an enemy fails a Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom Saving Throw against your spells and cantrips. If you and your party members tend to use Enchantment, Illusion, or curses in the Necromancy magic schools, you’ll have a good time with this circlet.

Lastly, we have Braindrain Gloves. Their main perk, Mental Interference, inflicts Mental Fatigue on opponents any time you deal Psychic damage. Mental Fatigue has two key factors: anyone affected by it has a -1 penalty to Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom Saving Throws, and anyone who fails these throws while this debuff has five or more turns remaining takes one to four Psychic damage. Combine these with the Circlet of Mental Anguish, and you’ve got yourself a solid combo for taking advantage of three different saving throws.