Researchers Simulate Building Block of Rat's Brain

slick_shoes passes on an article in the Guardian about the Blue Brain project in Switzerland that has developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column — the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains — of a two-week-old rat. (Here is the project site.) The model, running on an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer, simulates 10,000 neurons and all their interconnections. It behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. Thousands of such NCCs make up a rat's neocortex, and millions a human's. "Project director Henry Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain."

Comments

Neocortex too complex

[cynicsreport]

The neocortex is incredibly complex; not even small neuronal networks are well understood. To suggest that a computer can accurately simulate them is ridiculous.

It behaves exactly like its biological counterpart.

That is technically impossible, considering the behavior of the mammalian brain is not well understood at any level. Even intracellular processes are still under investigation; how synapses are regulated, interactions between neurons, and higher level functioning are still matters of great contention.
Even if these processes were well understood, our simulation methods are not sufficient to accurately represent the massively parallel structure of a brain.

Re:Hitler 2.0

[Belial6]

They guy that invented QWERTY did just fine. You are probably just missing his goal. The goal was to slow down typists. With a manual hammer type typewriter, typing too fast jams the machine. You need a way to make sure that 1) the most commonly used letters are farther away from each other, thus reducing the likelihood of jamming, and 2) slow the typist down enough that each hammer has time to retract before the next one comes up and jams it.

That necktie guy... Yeah, lets run him on Windows ME.

Re:A long way off yet

[WindowlessView]

Consider that blacks only got the vote in USA in the last 50 years.

You might want to take a refresher course in US History and stimulate those neurons between the Civil War and Civil Rights.

Re:A long way off yet

[Breakfast Pants]

I'm pretty sure he was making casual reference to this.

Re:Hitler 2.0

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

He designed the QWERTY-layout when jamming was a problem - when the next model went into production, it was no longer a problem. The real problems were that they already had a reasonably OK model that their current clients were familiar with, and that it would take more time/money to redesign the layout when no-one (read "the investors") truly cared. Heck, people still don't care - my family/friends look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them I could remap their keys for them.

Re:A long way off yet

[WindowlessView]

You're right, but black people did lose the vote again after the Civil War and only got it back less than 50 years ago.

No, they didn't. There were various schemes like the Poll Tax, which was outlawed by the 24th Amendment in 1964, but they were used mostly in the southern states and while primarily aimed at blacks were also written so they encompassed poor whites and virtually all immigrants. In general measures like these threw up roadblocks to voting but could not explicitly disenfranchise any group due to the 15th Amendment.

Re:The Intelligence Game

[Alsee]

What we need first is an overall theory to play with

For those interested, I just wanted to let people know MOBE2001's brain theories and expertise are based on his work decoding secret messages hidden in the bible. Secret coded messages rewriting the laws of physics too.

Interestingly, MOBE2001 makes a number of scientific testable predictions based on his bible code theories, predictions which may some day be either confirmed or refuted. So those interested in secret science messages coded in the bible can follow this work and the eventual success/failure of these predictions, and those who are not-so-interested in secret science messages coded in the bible can not-follow this work for the duration of eagerly anticipating the arrival of ground breaking scientific news coverage of confirmed predictions.

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