This, and our failure to simulate something as well understood as the c. elegans' 302 neurons, makes me think that biologists need to push a new approach. When

This, and our failure to simulate something as well understood as the c. elegans' 302 neurons, makes me think that biologists need to push a new approach. When it comes to understanding a radio or a microchip, my first instinct would be to try to isolate components which are as small as possible, and actually try to map inputs to outputs... And if that's not working, either the component isn't small/basic enough, or I haven't really captured all the inputs. I'd hopefully start getting an idea about logic gates and voltage thresholds and eventually building up to larger and more complex processes and parts. 1) Would such an approach work in theory for a radio or chip? 2) I'm assuming I'm not the first person to think of this - is that approach basically what's already being done? (edit: a lot of stuff in this seem to be along those line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrophysiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrophysiology ) 3) Is it just much harder than I imagine to isolate a single neuron (or small set of neurons) and try some inputs to come up with the algorithm to properly simulate it? 4) Or are neurons too complex for this approach to be effective, and we need to dig down to more basic components or get a better understanding of inputs?