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

[digfarenough]

> 
> Hi Eric =)
> 

hello :)

> 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 recall the word "impedance" being used when I was
told it couldn't be done :)
my understanding (which is likely incomplete) is that
a wire sensitive enough for intracellular recording
can't handle the current needed for stimulation

if this is exactly the problem (which I doubt), my
proposal is to draw a glass micropipette out to a
small diameter and run a thin strip of insulated metal
down the outside.. then ions could be pumped into the
cell for stimulation and the metal strip could be used
for intracellular measurements (but not necessarily at
the same time due to the possibility of induced
current from the ions)

I've been thinking about it because I actually do have
an experiment that requires it, when I proposed it I
was told this specific problem would have to be dealt
with, I haven't run the above idea by anyone yet

> 
> 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?
> 

in invertebrate species it's been found that a
transmitter can be localized to different parts of a
neuron says a textbook I have here (2003)
but they say it isn't known if this is true in mammals
yet, although proteins are specifically localized, so
it is possible

> 
> 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.
> 

hmm.. I think I agree with that, but I have trouble
translating the chaos-type description of brain
activity into the way I'm used to thinking of it :)

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

if we find out it's too complex at one level, we can
always drop down on and simulate it there.. for
instance, simluating protein activity and such instead
of neural activity.. it makes it *much* slower and
harder to upload a person that way, but if all else
fails... :)

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