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There is probably not going to be any singular common code for all brains, this is pattern recognition in a fatty sponge that grew from a single cell. There wi

• negativity 12y ago
  I pretty much agree with this sentiment. They point out that information seems to directly correlate with synaptic structures, so if that's true then it's pretty doubtful that we'd be able to come up with a codified syntax for the definition of memories, and then readily implement the syntax upon a living creatire in a healthy (and cost-effective/legal) way, at least insofar as directly enforcing synaptic structures known to provoke the recall of memories. Meanwhile, preparing experiments for creatures not yet alive is an altogether different game. Growing a structure, by controlling chemical pathways, or physically restricting the movement of neurons trained or genetically modified to fire according to pre-defined external stimuli seems to be what the article is driving at. But what good will that do me, if I'm already alive? Maybe a tiny lobotomy for me, and then drop in a blob vat grown cells, that brain slug their way into place? Would I still be me after that?
  • sj4nz 12y ago
    That would be a pretty macabre experiment. But I would guess that you would still be you, but with the after effects of a stroke. The larger the volume of the cut, the larger the damage. That would be the a form of brain transfusion---an installation of living blank media. I am unsure of how you would mentally direct the brain to use the new resource.
    • negativity 12y ago
      Well, ideally, the "new resource" is also genetically matched living brain, and given the plasticity of brain tissue, and maybe by way of a novel as-yet-uninvented means of coaxing, the two would mutually recognize the severed gap between the two pieces, and heal back together. I mean I'm not a brain surgeon, so I'm operating with possibly a great deal of very wrong assumptions about how the brain recovers and heals from lacerations. Would it be like trying to mend a spinal cord injury, which we still haven't quite mastered? Or since it would be surgery, would the brain take to it like rejoined pieces of healthy brain tissue, after the removal of a malignant tumor? I suppose a lot of that would depend on the quality of the custom grown tissue, and the technique of the operation. Either way, nerve cells are essentially highly specialized finicky amoeba, with dendrites acting as elaborately decorated pseudopods. They don't quite "swim" like white blood cells, but sort of creep along, and test each other out, delicately and selectively. And apparantly human cells can specialize to the point where a single cell can recognize key concepts of individualized external human identities (the article mentions Jennifer Aniston and Luke Skywalker). So, in the sense that dendrites are pseudopods, and pseudopods are, along their external surface, celluar membranes (lipid bi-layers, decorated with embedded proteins), the proteins are the specialized structures that ultimately drive the behavior of the cell to direct it's psuedopods this way or that way. It's a mixture of chemical reactions all the way down, even if there is a layer of very fundamental electrical processes mixed in, due to the deliberately maintained PH value, and shifting electrolytic potential of the chemicals involved. There was an article describing brain behavior as analogous to a swarm of ants. This makes sense, since ant communities guide their collective behavior by tagging their territories with scent, which gets reinforced with increased ants marching along pathways. So, at the end of the day, some kind of transplant process would probably require an arm of research tackling the micro-scale and nano-scale structures and living behavior of the tissue, but also the chemical aspects of how neurons sniff each other out, and decide to stimulate each other through the electric polarity fluctuations of their electrolyte juices.