Comments on: A circuit diagram of the mouse brain

By: Michael Zeldich

Michael Zeldich — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:14:50 +0000

Even if one will develop a functional model of a brain, it will be useless because the role of a brain is still unknown, as well as the reasons for developing and loosing synaptic connections. Neural net is dynamic reflections of the events in the particular body life, a moment after a moment, and without that history cannot be understood.

By: EP

EP — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 07:30:08 +0000

If you’re really confident in that, go win a million dollars from James Randi.

By: eldras

eldras — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 03:05:09 +0000

Brilliant article thanks Amara. Hurdle is the synapse.

By: Bri

Bri — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:47:43 +0000

I’ve said this many times on this web site, and I’ve gotten a bit of flack for it. I live with psychic experiences. I’m very scientific by nature. Have been all my life. Many friends have nicknamed me science. I have given my experiences a very intense evaluation. The soul exists I don’t know the reasoning that Dennets uses, but it would be meaningless to me. I consider it a boring day if something psychic doesn’t happen, and some aspects I can summon at will. I’ve always known that I’ve lived before, since before I new words to speak the concept. All I can tell you is that the experience is often like what was depicted in the movie The dead zone, in that it jolts me. It’s more like an elevator drop, but instead of down , you fall briefly inward. Most of what I see is very personal. I would imagine that you would be increduous, but that doesn’t change the fact, that I live with it. Truth is truth. I’ve tested this innumerable times. It is very real. My mother was in psychology. She had her concerns that it might be a mental aberration like schizophrenia. I’ve been tested five times. The report is always the same. I’m of above average intelligence and if anything, extremely well balanced. Whether you like it or not, you have a soul. Your spirit, which is different from your soul, changes and evolves in relation to what you experience. I’m very familiar with brain research, and I feel no conflict with how it functions. It’s not an easy issue to resolve. As it stands now, there is no hard proof of what I say. I have a way to prove it, but it’s turning out to be hard to find an organization that is willing to test it. I will continue to seek an avenue to give credibility to what I’m saying. Right now the responses I’m getting are that there is a lack of funding, because of the economic times. I’m hoping to get the Templeton Foundation interested, but I have received no response from them. It’s actually their charter to prove or disprove the existence of the soul. I hope to end this debate. For me it is annoying to think that people don’t know. I hear and read about how there is no soul, and that it’s just superstition. As I’ve said, I’ve known it since before I could walk.

By: MrFriendly

MrFriendly — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 00:44:37 +0000

I say this a lot, but it’s true that even simple models of neural circuits can still yield great advancements in many areas of computing.

The big issue here, though, is that a lot can be learned to advance medicine.

By: EP

EP — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 23:31:52 +0000

Souls and evolution aren’t really compatible, see Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.”
If you don’t believe in evolution, I don’t know what could possibly convince you at this point.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:38:40 +0000

Don’t be afraid of such developments. You are everything you are, regardless of what the building blocks are. If scientists were to figure out exactly how your thoughts and feelings work, it wouldn’t devalue them in any way.

It wouldn’t change anything. The underlying structure of your mind is what it is, the only difference would be whether we understand it, or not.

By: John Middlemas

John Middlemas — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:59:21 +0000

This mouse brain decoding is a huge problem similar to travelling to the distant stars, we will never get there and we know it. You cannot decode billions of brain cells and trillions of connections. These sort of problems are beyond the realms of the imagination. Even if you could make a map you will never understand it and even if you could you would not reproduce intelligence if it lies outside of physical items, e.g. the soul. Without strong evidence the soul does not exist it is a pure guess to invest loads of money in these researches. If the sould exists then it must surely be the source of intelligence and other higher functions and the neurons and connections are just the “lower end” of the system.

This makes sense when you think that neurons and connections are just like a map of roads and roundabouts with traffic buzzing around. How can such a simple and inert system produce higher functions like appreciation of beauty, stress, love and the like. I am not just a collection of roundabouts and roads thank you very much.

By: Ralph Dratman

Ralph Dratman — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:55:17 +0000

That image analysis program is going to be running for a long, long time.

By: Vin

Vin — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 16:59:15 +0000

So the breakthrough is instead of cut and image, its image and then cut? Standing upside down on the head, its the only way to fly.

By: Editor

Editor — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:48:24 +0000

Gordon, please see http://www.kurzweilai.net/23-year-old-with-terminal-brain-cancer-hopes-to-be-cryopreserved-update for an update from Alcor.

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:56:53 +0000

This is exactly the area of research that will lead to repairing the brain damage caused by freezing in cryogenics.

This leads us to think of young Kim Suozzi. Can you tell us how she’s doing, Amara? Are the donations near her goal?

By: tim the realist

tim the realist — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 11:57:59 +0000

if this technology can be made quick and efficient, then comparison sturies of cloned mice will reveal any structural differences. we will be able to directly measure physical brain changes during development and due to different environmental effects including nutrients, exercise, and learning / training.

This technique could also be used to measure efficiacy of different brain preservation methods and any physical degradation over time using mice brains from control clones raised as identically as possible. Given enough data it should be easy to distinguich normal variation patterns from defects introduced during preservation and storage.