question
No Best Answer Selected, Tip Refunded
2 answerers thought this was fair.
2 answerers thought this was fair.
answers (5)
Sounds a bit like the Kurzweilian brain scan and upload into virtual world scenario, which is what I would do. (Assumption is we could simulate the brain with enough information and give it a simulated sensory experience.)
Unless you have another idea?
Unless you have another idea?
It was fair to choose no best answer
We answered the question he asked. I actually answered about three more new questions after that in the comments, including one in the field of computational neuroscience. I gave him links to research that he wasn't aware of and he wasn't willing to admit that he learned anything significant.
We answered the question he asked. I actually answered about three more new questions after that in the comments, including one in the field of computational neuroscience. I gave him links to research that he wasn't aware of and he wasn't willing to admit that he learned anything significant.
I'd love to know if it is possible to perfectly predict a human's actions with that information, since it seems that theoretically that's all it would take (given the proper ability to ANALYZE all that data as well, of course).
It could shed even more light on whether free will truly exists as well. Fascinating stuff.
It could shed even more light on whether free will truly exists as well. Fascinating stuff.
I think there are a lot of cool questions you could use this tech for:
I'd ask:
1) What can we learn about how memory works? (And can you implant a few foreign languages while we're at it?)
2) What pain treatments are most effective (I know someone with chronic pain and apparently it's under-researched)
3) How do people make decisions? What mental/neurological questions are involved? This could have many applications.
4) Who is going to have access to all this information about my brain?
I'd ask:
1) What can we learn about how memory works? (And can you implant a few foreign languages while we're at it?)
2) What pain treatments are most effective (I know someone with chronic pain and apparently it's under-researched)
3) How do people make decisions? What mental/neurological questions are involved? This could have many applications.
4) Who is going to have access to all this information about my brain?
Discover the fractal dimensions of the patterns and hopefully win a Nobel prize, with which I would buy an electric car and some ocean front property in Nova Scotia.
the fractal dimensions of the patterns?
Store the data during prime portions of my life and cryogenically freeze myself upon death, hoping that my brain could be reconstructed and my body repaired.
It was fair to choose no best answer
The question seemed doomed for failure, since the asker apparently was fishing for some specific answer.
The question seemed doomed for failure, since the asker apparently was fishing for some specific answer.
Related questions
140 characters left
ask any question
Here are a few:
Large Scale Simulation of Mammalian Thalamocortical Systems
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0712231105v1.pdf?ck=nck
CCortex, a massive spiking neural network simulation of the human cortex and peripheral systems
http://www.corticaldb.com/ccortex.asp?id=1
IBM's rat brain neocortical column simulation
http://seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/out_of_the_blue.php
Also, I'm curious to know what sort of answer you expected when you asked this, if it wasn't the type I gave.
Which bits or aspects of monoamine neurons is also not what you asked and not as interesting as simulating the behavior of entire functioning networks as I supposed (which would enabled you to observe any specific aspect).
My understanding is that most computational neuroscience focuses on detailing rather specific aspects of brain/neural function and I assume this is because most researchers have a similar perspective as yours which is apparently that creating functioning networks is impossible and that only small features are worthy research targets.
I think that at this point it should be quite apparent that there is no cache of neuroscientists waiting to come out and vote on which is their favorite neurotransmitter/neuron type they would like to investigate with your data.
Also, if you were aware of these projects then why did you incorrectly state "piecing multi-unit electrophysiology data together into a functioning network is a massive, unsolved problem in neuroscience"? Surely those projects demonstrate that it is not fair to characterize the problem as unapproachable in such an unqualified way?
Most of the leading edge computational approaches to simulating significant portions of the brain, at least the type I mentioned, actually use finer-grained mechanisms than something like Granger causality since it seems most of those projects are calculating interactions between pulses of individual synapses rather than modeling the overall information flow. They might use a model along the lines of Granger to try to verify that their simulation is behaving like a real brain.
If you actually find a place on the internet were you can have a Q&A like this or even any kind of forum or other discussion with scientists in their areas of expertise then please post it on here. I don't think there are any places where groups of specialists in difference fields actually come together (as is the premise for Mahalo Answers, although not so much large numbers of actual scientists).
I assume that you can, however, find forums that specialize in neuroscience or whatever particular area is most applicable for you.