Reverse-Engineering the Brain
Computers and AI Benefits
- New technologies can be implemented in hospitals that are better at treating the patients.
- computers could potentially replace humans and the fear is that we could experience a Spy Kids effect.
Funding and Future Expections
- Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) recently received $100 million of funding from the Obama Administration in order to map the human brain within the next decade.
- BRAIN believes that they can accomplish a detailed map of the human brain, right down to the neurons and its connecters.
The Benefits of Reverse Engineering the Brain
- better understanding of metal disorders such Alzheimers, Autism, and Schizophrenia.
- With this knowledge, doctors can "rewire" the brain. Therefore, mental illnesses could potentially disappear.
Steps to Reverse Engineer the Brain
- It's not just mental illnesses that could be cured, if scientist find out which neurons are connected to the certain body parts, they could cure blindness and Paralysis.
- Act human
- Think human
- Act rational
- Think rational
Watson
Problems with Reverse-Engineering the Brain
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- To reverse-engineer the brain, you must decode and simulate the cerebral cortex
- 22 billion neurons
- 220 trillion synapses
- Analyzing all the complexities of nerve cell signals, their dynamics, pathways, and feedback loops, presents a major challenge.
Brain Teasers
Problems Cont.
- The code itself is complex — neurons fire at different rates
- Sometimes rapid bursts; sometimes it is slower
- And much of mental function seems based on the firing of multiple neurons around the brain in synchrony