3 ms·
> * 86 billion neurons in a brain [1]* > * 400 transistors to simulate a synapse [2]* > * That's 34 trillion, 400 billion transistors to simulate a human brai
by RaftPeople 3y ago
> * 86 billion neurons in a brain [1]*
> * 400 transistors to simulate a synapse [2]*
> * That's 34 trillion, 400 billion transistors to simulate a human brain.*
You forgot about:
1-Astrocytes - more common than neurons, computational, have their own style of internal and external signaling, have bi-directional communication with neurons at the synapse (and are thought to control the neurons)
2-Synapse: a single synapse can be both excitatory and inhibitory depending on it's structure and the permeant ions inside and outside the cell at that point in time and space - are your 400 transistors handling all of that dynamic capability?
3-Brain waves: are now shown to be causal (influencing neuron behavior) not just a by-product of activity. Many different types of waves (different frequencies) that operate very locally (high freq), or broadly (low freq). Information is encoded in frequency, phase, space and time.
This is the summary, the details are even more interesting and complex. Some of the details are probably not adding computational capabilities, but many clearly are.
- janpmz 3y agoReading about brain waves makes me think analog computing could be the way to go.
- Balgair 3y agoThe main issue is that we're lacking one of the four fundamental circuit components: the memristor [0]. If we had a simple, throw it in a box for five years, stable memristor, we'd have everything we'd need for brain modeling. Being as a memristor is effectively a synapse. With that, we would want to do everything in the analog domain anyways. [0] the other three are the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor.
- jiggawatts 3y agoWe have them now, on chips and everything.
- Balgair 3y agoWoah, where?! I can't seem to find anything on memristors being on chip or really being in solid state anything. I would love to get my hands on them!
- jiggawatts 3y agoA quick Google search will find thousands of articles. It was possible to buy memristor storage devices, but they weren't sufficiently competitive with ordinary flash memory and I believe they're relegated to niche applications such as high erase counts. AI implementations on Memristor circuitry has come up often enough that even I've heard of it. E.g.: A random recent development is https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45312-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45312-0
- Balgair 2y agoI've been googling for a while on these, it's the first I've heard of it. Do you have a link at all? Not trying to troll here, I really am genuinely interested.