[MURG] current (surprising) work toward mind uploading

[Eric Zilli]

while browsing the abstracts for next week's Society for Neuroscience
meeting I came across a relevant one (sorry, can't copy and paste it
in here and I don't want to retype it all)
it's called "Whole mouse brain mapped at submicron resolution using
knife-edge scanning microscope"
the microscope's sampling resolution is 300 nm, can get 100MB/s and
can scan a mouse brain in ~100 hours
they end saying "...New 3D parallel image-processing algorithms,
including our polymerization algorithm, have been developed to
geometrically reconstruct and visualize the cell bodies and dendritic
and axonal arborization of the neurons."

another:
"Serial-block face scanning electron microscopy (SBFSEM) to
reconstruct 3D tissue nanostructure."
it ends:
"The resolution is sufficient to trace even the thinnest axons and to
identify synapses. Image stacks of various tissue types, such as
muscle, cortex, cerebellum, and retina have been obtained, each
containing hundreds of sections, 50-70 nm thick. The lateral position
jitter is typically under 10 nm. This, for the first time, opens the
possibility to completely reconstruct the connectivity of neuronal
circuits."

sounds like a great start

while doing some looking I came across this presentation on a
feasability study of well.. a vaguely uploading sort of thing..
there's some interesting data in here such as the claim that the
connections of synapses hold more information than their state:
http://www.sandia.gov/cog.systems/cognitive_workshop/Cog%20Workshop%202004%20Presentations/Brakefield,%20James.pdf

-- 
Eric Zilli
Hasselmo Lab - Computational Neurophysiology
Center for Memory and Brain
Boston University
2 Cummington St.
Boston MA, 02215
digfarenough at gmail.com -- www.digfarenough.com