[MURG] Neuropeptide Function?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 11:18:25PM -0500, Yan King Yin wrote:
> 
> Just some updates of my recent activities:
> 
> (1) I'm studying some mathematical neural network
> theories. It *may* be possible to simply a biological
> neural net (eg obtained from scanning) without
> changing its dynamics significantly. Afterall the

Unfortunately, a complete model of information processing in biological
tissue is equivalent to a complete model of biological tissue. It's a dirty
computer. Theories tackle only few select aspects. It's a caricature of the
real thing.

> brain certainly has a lot of redundancies. If this can
> be done then uploads can run sooner than Moore's law
> reaches the required level.

I'm having my doubts about our future. There's a considerable potential
locked in the raw switch count of a 300 mm wafer, or a near-future molecular
computer which is not available due to architecture issues. A true machine
intelligence can achive very high improvement rates by breaking through these
barriers.

It will take a long time to creat a supercritical seed, but it will go from
zero to hero in record time, leaving us far behind. It is very important that
we will survive that bootstrap process.
 
> (2) Trying to figure out what neuropeptides do
> in the brain in genereal. I looked up primitive nerve
> nets of cnidarians eg Hydra etc, and these critters
> already use peptides stored in LDCVs in chemical
> synapses; Not sure about fast synaptic transmission.
> What could be the function of peptides in these
> organisms?

No idea. Sysadmining pays my bills, no time for nothing.

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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