[MURG] I'm back, with some new ideas =)

[Yan King Yin]

From: digfarenough <digfarenough at yahoo.com>
>In the roadmap I see that the DNI is under revision. I
>believe that with current technology it isn't possible
>to have a probe that is both sensitive enough to
>measure neuronal activity and strong enough to
>stimulate a neuron. I don't know enough about
>electronics to know why this isn't currently possible
>(if that's true at all) or if we'll ever be able to do
>this. On a related note, I've spent some time coming
>up with ideas on ways around this, but haven't run
>them by anyone so I don't know if it's feasible.

Hi Eric =)

I think it can be done, with a voltage limiter to
protect the AD converter. Though it's better to
team up with an electronics engineer. Maybe the
reason it's not built is because people haven't
seen any use of something like that.

I'm glad you're interested in this and we'll
certainly discuss it in more details. But we
need to find some way to get paid.

>Next, I see you reference 'Dale's Law.' This law is no
>longer believed to be true, but that may not affect
>your idea. You should also keep in mind that more and
>more evidence shows that glial cells play major roles
>in the brain, I wouldn't be surprised if they were
>found to have some information processing abilities.
>This also may not affect your proposal.

Wait... the 'modified' Dale's law means that a single
neuron will only release 1 'blend' of neurotransmitters.
Is that still true? Or are you saying a neuron can
release one thing at some synapses and something
else at others?

>I've also wondered about such mimicking algorithms.
>The fact that synaptic efficacy is constantly changing
>and that vesicle release is slightly stochastic may
>make it difficult to fully mimic them. (I think you
>were talking about this in the email).

It's one thing to duplicate certain aspects of attractor
dynamics, and another thing to duplicate *the same*
attractor dynamics as the brain's. The later is much
harder.

>Also, receptors on cells can be pretty complicated...
>for instance, ionotropic GABA_A receptors can couple
>to D5 (a dopamine) receptor and binding to one
>receptor alters the other one. (Liu et al., 2000)
>Since the brain is basically the result of a huge
>series of accidents, I bet more tricky stuff like this
>awaits.

I agree too, the problem is that there isn't any easy
systematic way to exhaust all possibilities....

More on this later,
YKY


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