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I would feel less skeptical about the prospects for simulating the human brain if I had heard that someone had succeeded in simulating an infinitely simpler ner
by tgflynn 14y ago
I would feel less skeptical about the prospects for simulating the human brain if I had heard that someone had succeeded in simulating an infinitely simpler nervous system, say that of a spider, for instance, and obtained spider-like behavior from it.
- kanzure 14y agoNot a spider, but how about C. elegans? http://openworm.org/ http://openworm.org/ https://github.com/openworm https://github.com/openworm http://nemaload.davidad.org/ http://nemaload.davidad.org/ http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/nematodeuploadproject/ http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/nematodeuploadproject/
- streptomycin 14y agoThose don't really work, though: http://lesswrong.com/lw/88g/whole_brain_emulation_looking_at_progress_on_c/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/88g/whole_brain_emulation_looking_at... From the Human Brain Project http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/neuroscience.html http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/neuroscience.html Why not begin with simple organisms like C.elegans? There are two problems here. The first is feasibility; the second is the relevance of our results. Feasibility. Neuroscientists have mapped all of C.elegans’ 300 or so neurons. However, enormous amounts of key data needed are still missing. For instance we do not have enough data on the physiology and pharmacology of C. Elegans neurons and synapses. And we still have limited data on the distribution of ion channels, receptors and other proteins on neurons, synapses and glia. Without this data we cannot build unifying models. A second problem is how easy it is to obtain the data. The crucial requirement for unifying models is the ability to access the data needed. Obtaining a deep understanding of the molecular machinery of a single neuron or a single synapse is just as difficult in C. Elegans as in human beings. And many datasets – particularly data on cognition - are actually easier to acquire in rodents, or even in humans. So we can’t just say: “let’s do this quickly in worms and do complex brains later”: we have to solve the same basic challenges, whatever brain we model. What we are actually doing is building a generic strategy we can use to reconstruct any brain. Relevance: Studying the “simple” nervous systems of organisms like C.elegans or drosophila, is obviously very important, particularly for molecular and genetic studies. However the organization, electrophysiology and function of the mammalian brain are quite different. One of the HBP’s most important goals is to contribute to the development of new treatments for brain disease. But pharmaceutical companies already have great difficulties in translating results from mouse to human beings; with simpler organisms these problems become much worse. If we want to make a real contribution to clinical research, it is probably unwise to invest heavily in simple systems, so distant from the human brain.
- kanzure 14y agoI never claimed that the physiology of C. elegans should be preferred over that of the human brain.
- streptomycin 14y agoNo offense intended, I'm just trying to contribute to the discussion.
- tgflynn 14y agoIt sounds like they're saying 300 neurons is too hard so let's do 10^11 instead. Science usually proceeds somewhat incrementally from easier problems to harder problems and I'm not seeing the foundation here. Weren't simple genomes sequenced long before it was proposed to sequence the human genome ?
- neuroguy 14y agoThe argument is partially like that, but the more complete version is: 1) We know a lot about brain cognition through psychology, AI etc 2) We know a lot about how people process from all the years of expermentation. 3) The big things we don't know, is exactly what the role of the cell is, or how it processes. For example, is it they synchronous firing of cells that allows us to experience? What is actually going on in all those billions of cells etc. 4) We know a lot about the electrical activity in the brain, some about the molecular and chemical processes etc, but what we don't have is an overarching way of putting all this together, so we know what we are looking at. 5) We don't know what C. Elgans think about or what causes them to do things, so we will have a harder time understanding what exactly makes them tick. I apologize if there is repetition, unclear lines, or bad reasoning, I am in the middle of running some brain simulations, and had a minute while it ran.
- varjag 14y agoOn the other hand, activity patterns of C. Elegans neurons can be comprehensively studied, it's behavior is well studied in how it responds to simple stimuli. Simulating it has all the promising properties of good old scientific method. It is debatable whether building a $1.6B catatonic brain will advance neuroscience more than a comprehensive, experimentally matched simulation of a simpler system first.
- Retric 14y ago10 years ago people simulated a nematode, a type of worm, and got nematode like behavior from it.
- tgflynn 14y agoDo you have a reference ? Do these worms exhibit non-trivial behavior or is it at the level of say reflex attraction to light sources ?
- Retric 14y agoSort of. There are only 302 neurons in a nematode, but knowing what weights to put on each of them is an issue. PS: Not mine but this looks like a good summery. http://www.jefftk.com/news/2011-11-02 http://www.jefftk.com/news/2011-11-02
- JohnIdol 14y agoActually if you read that link carefully - complete (or even complex) nematode behavior has never been simulated. Different teams have simulated different traits of behavior such as reaction to pokes on the head, non-spontaneous sinusoidal locomotion (there are different kinds of nematode locomotion triggered by the viscosity of the environment). Nothing resembling a learning nematode, indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of behavior, has ever been achieved (unfortunately).
- Glayden 14y agoPrecisely. Can we even see a complete simulation of E. Coli? It's disheartening how much of science news and research today is all about hype, smoke, and mirrors. It's becoming more about catching fleeting fame and money grabbing than actually producing interesting advances and results. Exactly how would they scale this when you have something like a hundred trillion synapses between the neurons in a brain? Mind you this is falsely assuming that there is nothing of worth to simulate within individual neurons/synapses. Our current technological infrastructure isn't even in the ballpark of being good enough to deal with actually LARGE graph data structures, and people are getting excited about this nonsense. They talk up these simulations, but we don't even know the basic details about these things yet. Let's see a complete simulation of a spider's brain from the bottom up before talking about simulating the human brain. Let's figure out precisely what is going on in the brain of a spider. I will be surprised if we accomplish that in the next 50 years.
- apl 14y ago> Precisely. Can we even see a complete simulation of > E. Coli? Kind of: http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(12)00776-3 http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(12)00776-3
- catshirt 14y agoif i recall correctly, blue brain, also ran by Markram, has successfully emulated a rat cortex in some capacity.
- 31reasons 14y agoThe Human Brain Project's ultimate goal is to simulate human brain but its decade long project with 80 institutes and hundreds of scientist involved. I am sure simulating simpler brain systems will be part of the agenda before they move to much more complex systems.