April 04, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Studying Neuronal Learning
All these stories that we tell ourselves
culturally and religiously are no match for the greatest narrative that the
brain generates for each of us, the idea of a special individual “I”.
It is perhaps today the most fascinating
and elusive problem that is being attacked from all possible angles –
neuroscience, supercomputing and philosophy – under the massive giant project
known as the Human Brain Project.
This incredible human endeavor was being
coordinated by the professor of neurobiology Henry Markram of Ecole
Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) who surprisingly enough is a citizen
of Israel (though having arrived on this planet in South Africa) and has
married twice and reproduced prolifically with the last count of five.
One of them, ironically, happens to be autistic.
As I said, beautiful brains/minds come in
all forms and today after doing so many bedtime stories it would not surprise
me if this neuroscientist turns out to be deeply religious putting his faith on
one mythical creator with whom he was indoctrinated with as a childhood.
His research specialty is intern-neuronal
connectivity, ion channels on synaptic vesicles, learning mechanism operating
between neurons, role of alteration of synaptic dynamics in synaptic learning,
organization of neurocortical columns.
Markram’s claim that the activity of entire
human brain could be simulated on a supercomputer was challenged by 154
researchers and in 2015 the three-member executive committee led by Markram was
dissolved to be replaced by a 22-member governing board.
It is impossible to conceive of a single
bacterium as thinking of itself in terms of an individual being; even more so
for a virus.
Same would hold true for a sheet of lichen
which is a composite organism arising from algae or cyanobacteria living among
filaments of multiple fungi in a symbiotic relationship.
Why then should a brain of a house mouse
with 71 million neurons interconnected with roughly 1 x 1012
synapses “think” of itself as “I”?
Or Does it?
What we know for certain is that the brains
of sapiens containing on average 86,000 million neurons or 86 billion neurons
interconnected with roughly 1.5 x 1014 synapses definitely generates
an illusion of “I” or self for itself.
Of the 86,000 million neurons of sapiens
brain, just 16,000 million of them or just about 18.5% of them form the cerebral
cortex.
“The human cerebral cortex, with an average
1233 grams and 16 billion neurons, is slightly below expectations for a primate
brain of 1.5 kg, while the human cerebellum, at 154 gm and 69 billion neurons,
matches or even slightly exceed the expected.”
This is a quote from the paper by Suzana Herculano-Houzel,
a Brazilian neuroscientist whose main field of work is comparative neuroanatomy
and currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor
Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend
this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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