A “functional” model, Yuste emphasized, would go much further, by allowing researchers to see not just the connections between the tens of billions of neurons that comprise a human brain, but the individual action of every cell in a given neural circuit. Said map would amount to much more than what is often referred to as a “static” model - a wiring diagram that charts how neurons connect with one another. By mapping circuit activity, Yuste thinks researchers can “discover patterns that are the physical representation and origin of mental states - of thoughts, for example, or memories.” “You could argue, in a very simplistic way, that everything that we are, our whole mental world, amounts to nothing more than neural circuits firing throughout the brain,” Yuste said. In an interview with io9, Yuste explained that the ultimate goal of the project is to create what he calls a functional map of the active human brain. Yuste is a co-author of a widely circulated BAM project proposal published last July in the journal Neuron, and one of the scientists whose advice the Obama Administration has sought in planning what the NYTcharacterized as a ten-year, multi-billion dollar undertaking. Columbia University’s Rafael Yuste is one of them.
Many neuroscientists believe that a detailed BAM could reveal valuable clues about these and other cognitive functions, and perhaps human consciousness, itself. Billions upon billions of neurons communicate with one another via trillions of connections, giving rise to what amounts to a network of networks. Widely adopted (but by no means universally accepted) theories posit that these neural networks are the wellsprings of such complex processes as perception and action. BAM is an acronym you’ll probably be hearing a lot in the weeks and months to come - so let’s talk about what the BAM project is, what it isn’t, and why it’s raising both interest and eyebrows throughout the scientific community. The front page of Monday’s New York Times revealed the Obama Administration may soon seek billions of dollars from Congress to map the human brain, in an ambitious project many have claimed will do for neuroscience what the Human Genome Project has done for genetics.ĭetails probably won’t emerge until March at the earliest, but it’s a safe bet the Administration’s plan will resemble a Brain Activity Map (aka “BAM”) project outlined last year in the journal Neuron.
0 kommentar(er)
