Large-scale neural simulations have the marks of a distinct methodology which can be fruitfully deployed to advance scientific understanding of the human brain. Computer simulation studies can be used to produce surrogate observational data for better conceptual models and new how-possibly explanations of neural and cognitive phenomena, or they can be used to test explanatory hypotheses and identify sufficient causal factors in specific neurobiological mechanisms, or yet again they can be deployed exploratorily to evaluate the hierarchy of multiple neural and cognitive models that are put forward at different spatio-temporal and organizational scales.