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The Mathematics of Neuroscience
eldavojohn writes "An academic paper on math [PDF] has been released by Paul Bressloff, resulting in much ado about the mathematical modeling of the brain's memory storage. The paper deals with specific receptors called AMPA and how memories are held while synapses still fire. Scientific American is running a more detailed report on the subject." From the article "At any given time, some AMPA receptors are moving inside the nerve cell where they are unable to receive signals. But to maintain memory, a number of AMPA receptors are anchored in place with what are known as scaffolding proteins, Bressloff said. The computer models examined how many AMPA receptors are anchored at the receiving area on the surface as opposed to those found elsewhere in the nerve cell. The more AMPA receptors that are anchored in place, the stronger the synapse."
one major downside with almost all computational models, however, is that they rely on assumptions that the designers can't prove.
I think this is the key. Laypeople think that the reason we don't understand the brain is because it's too complicated. It is complicated, but the main difficulty is the inconvenience of the brain as an experimental system. It's very hard to see what's going on inside a brain without damaging it so it doesn't work any more, so we're stuck using experimental tools that answer the questions we can answer instead of the questions we want to answer. So basically what I think you're saying (and I agree) is that the problem with modeling approaches is that the data isn't there to back them up. I would argue that means the real problem is not with the modeling, but with the experimental side (and I say this as an experimentalist, so it isn't meant in any derogatory way).