It's complicated. Like me. This sort of thing - 3D mapping of just the basic circuits - is possible and fairly cool, so not a hoax. Unlike me. A major effort underway is the "connectome", a 3d map of every neuron and connection in one brain (we're talking 100 billion neurons, and times that by 100 or so to get connections). This is nearly impossible; even efforts to do this for a small part of the brain is just amazingly tough. But people are working on it. Eventually the hope would be to get some basic principles of connectivity and algorithms that could speed up maps of other brains...because the more detailed you get in a brain map, the more it just applies to that particular individual at that particular age and so on.
I don't get what the big deal is!? I have been hangin' brain for about a half hour now and I think I got the whole thing mapped out...wait...you mean brains as in our thought processing center, not loose crinkled scrotal skin. My mistake.
3 comments:
It's complicated. Like me. This sort of thing - 3D mapping of just the basic circuits - is possible and fairly cool, so not a hoax. Unlike me. A major effort underway is the "connectome", a 3d map of every neuron and connection in one brain (we're talking 100 billion neurons, and times that by 100 or so to get connections). This is nearly impossible; even efforts to do this for a small part of the brain is just amazingly tough. But people are working on it. Eventually the hope would be to get some basic principles of connectivity and algorithms that could speed up maps of other brains...because the more detailed you get in a brain map, the more it just applies to that particular individual at that particular age and so on.
I don't get what the big deal is!? I have been hangin' brain for about a half hour now and I think I got the whole thing mapped out...wait...you mean brains as in our thought processing center, not loose crinkled scrotal skin. My mistake.
Ahh, the hanging brain. That is covered in neuroscience 301 here at mit.
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