What is Digg?24 Comments
- f4nt0m4s, on 06/24/2008, -2/+15But will it help us understand how women think?
- talonjasra, on 06/24/2008, -3/+15Greater understanding of the brain=greater chance that a true VR system will be made :D
- Mallus, on 06/24/2008, -1/+10From the article: "This work shows that astrocytes--which make up 50 percent of the cells in the cortex but whose function was unknown--respond exquisitely to sensory drive, regulate local blood flow in the cortex and even influence neuronal responses," Sur said. "What's more, astrocytes are arranged in orderly feature maps, exquisitely mapped across the cortical surface in sync with neuronal maps."
So, if the number of "functional units" in the brain is actually double what we thought it was, the time frame in which we'll have computer hardware capable of perfectly simulating a human brain will be pushed back... by about 18 months, if Moore's Law continues to hold true... ;-) - loneBoat, on 06/24/2008, -1/+7And uber-smart people who go on to become millionaires. Doesn't sound too bad to me, even if it meant being called a nerd.
- aptanalogy, on 06/24/2008, -0/+5As a neuroscience major I find this amazing; it directly conflicts with some of the theories in textbooks at the moment, which don't implicate astrocytes in such a broad role in the BOLD response. They were just said to fill in the spaces, giving the brain its substance. For instance, some studies found that the increase in blood flow related to the BOLD response was correlated with the presence of certain neurotransmitters, and there are other studies showing the obvious correlates with metabolic activity and the use of ATP in regions with high oxygen (and therefore, paramagnetic Hb). But no causation has been shown definitively, until now, apparently.
- VitriolAndAngst, on 06/24/2008, -0/+5I think that behind every big named researcher, is a postdoctoral associate who is actually the one with the brilliant idea.
The old guys are calcified and its always the young hotshots with the ideas. They have to give these away to the mentors to get access. Then one day, they will exploit the youth if they ever hope to become big shots. - FuryOfThor, on 06/24/2008, -3/+7Considering the vast number of studies done using imaging technology, this is vastly important for corroborating a big chunk of psychological studies conducted in the past five, ten years.
- JSager, on 06/24/2008, -2/+6I was disappointed. Not a single thing in here on why Magneto's helmet blocks Professor X's mind powers.
- chipwalker, on 06/24/2008, -0/+3Not a problem most diggers have to worry about.
- zadadka, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2Backup your mind with with BrainImageXML ...
(I'll bet the DAT files are HUGE !!) - jtoon, on 06/24/2008, -3/+5At the end of the article: "In addition to Sur and Schummers, postdoctoral associate Hongbo Yu is a lead author of the study."
I knew it! Behind every discovery there's always a Chinese doing the real work that gets very little credit. - LivingChaos, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2This Is a very big discovery. fMRI is one of the few ways to directly image "brain activity" in fully functional humans but the causal link between the BOLD signal (blood flow) and what that means in terms of neuronal activity has been a mystery until this study. Not only does this open doors to new study but it sheds light on many years of experimentation before it.
- VitriolAndAngst, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2This is pretty huge. This may indicate that the Neurons are just the messaging centers. The Astrocytes may increase the blood flow -- but that may be just to keep the "modem" working. These other cells might be doing a lot more of the processing than once believed. Neurons have been the only ones tracked because of their electrical activity -- I hadn't known that there were so many cells being ignored.
This is probably the start of a huge paradigm shift in brain research. If they can get better real-time viewing of these chemically functioning cells, I think we are going to be more than doubling our practical knowledge in the next two years. - treedude, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1Hardware is not the issue. We should have the necessary hardware in just a few years (well, super computers anyways). Simulating the human brain takes the right software to act as each of the brain's functions. Even if we needed double the hardware, that would not impeed the software development, which is still a ways away (about 20 years).
- Meursault, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1This actually sounds like a pretty significant finding.
- ColdDimSum, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1Actual performance doesn't double every 18-months (and I think you mean 2 years, Moore's Law is 2 years) and actual software performance definitely doesn't double every 2 years.
- Terr01, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1That's assuming that our current hardware is even capable of being wired up in the same way.
For example, all of our current processors (with some experimental exceptions) are based on a synchronous clock tick. By contrast, the human brain may very well be asynchronous.
Sure, at some level we can get by with wholly emulating things in software, but that just increases the hardware requirements.
And what if lots of obscure chemical interactions are found out to be more important? Protein folding? Or quantum effects? (Far-fetched, but with a certain interesting appeal.) - Cybermaul, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1Just hope that Microsoft doesn't go and change the way their software handles the backup/restoration procedures or the data will have a high likelihood of corrupting.
- fracai, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1Interesting, I was all set to correct you on the 18 months / 2 years bit, but looked it up first. Moore never predicted 18 months, he originally calculated transistor count doubling as 1 year, but revised this in 1975. A colleague calculated that integrated circuit performance would double every 18 months due to improved transistor performance.
- JoeVet, on 06/24/2008, -1/+1Astrocytes support the brain vascular system so its not surprising that the have a role in blood flow. Sometimes science is just a statement of the obvious. I'll wait for the article before giving then the Nobel.
- cyberflas, on 06/24/2008, -4/+3cheap rabor
- james188foster, on 06/24/2008, -4/+1I don't know anything about brain imaging. But the last real breakthrough was the PET Scan introduction of 1985. So anything that pushes things forward has to be a good thing.
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