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A Computer Chip With a Brain’s ‘Plasticity’

Unlike what happens in computer-chip circuits, electrical connections between neurons in the brain don’t simply turn on and off: Low-level electrical current—channels of ions—continue to flow, even when a neuron isn’t actively firing. This strengthens neuron networks, and is one way the brain changes (and learns). Neuron connections can also deteriorate, if the electrical flows wane.

A Harvard-MIT medical-science lab has now, for the first time, created a chip that can mimic this aspect of the brain’s malleability, or “plasticity.” The connections between its transistors are not digital (on/off) but analog, with subtle gradations that act like ion channels.

The chips will be useful in modeling certain brain functions, such as visual processing, their creators say, and will act in a more realistic fashion than computer models do. (Circuits will grow and change within the chip, in an organic fashion.) Ultimately, the chips could serve as interfaces between brain and machine—allowing a disabled person to better control a prosthetic, for example.

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    • Nice Article..Thanks a lot

    • So many aspects of the brain worth mimicking! Not the least of which is the male brain when it becomes obsessed with a woman. I'd like to see the folks at Harvard-MIT try to mimic that one in their lab.

      Can obsession as a brain function be modeled? Has any attempt been made so far in the literature? How sophisticated does a computer-chip have to be to model that kind of brain activity? And how long will it be before we see an obsessed computer? A computer obsessed with a beautiful woman.

      And if we ever reach that point, how long will a woman take to realize that a computer is obsessed with her? It certainly doesn't take her long to understand what is going on when a guy is so totally obsessed.

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