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Map of an Insect’s Brain

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#41

Post by gptgpp »

seesawtron wrote: post #33
gptgpp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man... I just find neural connectomes so depressing. It's like looking at the copper wiring on the motherboard, or the pins of the CPU, when what you really want is the logic from the networked gates (transistors). Yet it seems we are many, many decades away from being able to extract that in any comprehensible or definitive way. I need to stop reading neuroscience articles. There's always big proclamations, Like "th…

You should read about the immense criticism this paper attracted after its publication. It was published on the same journal since publishers like a bit of controversy ;) [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08966...

There's a pdf here if anyone else is interested:

https://www.yorku.ca/science/research/schalljd/wp-content/up...

Yeah all that criticism doesn't go into any detail about actual methodological flaws or issues with the results... It just complains about language and is pretty sanctimonious for such weak and generic citations. Like, those are the sort of citations I'd give as an undergrad and trying to pad a paper to make it seem more authoritative and well established than it is lol.

Were any of the criticisms NOT centered around their irresponsible use of language and about the actual methodology and results? How they cultured different neurons to play pong is pretty amazing by itself to me.

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#42

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

wizofaus wrote: post #25
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #6

if you map every single neuron, at what point is it no longer just a 'model' of reality, and is reality. How do we know that the computer model of neurons does not have the same internal awareness as the real neurons?

Is there convincing evidence actual insects have "awareness"?

What is "awareness"?

The only objective, measurable quantity is information complexity. (And yes, insects have it.)

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#43

Post by ar9av »

abraxas wrote: post #5

Is it simulated to the level where you could give it some visual stimulus and observe the actions it is trying to take? Could it be wired to a remote robotic insect and control it in real time? I've no idea how detailed these simulation projects and if we are months or decades away from doing what I mentioned

The level of detail in insect brain simulations varies, and it may be challenging to simulate it to the level of reacting to visual stimuli. Neural interfaces have been successful in controlling robots, but real-time processing and precision remain a challenge.

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#44

Post by coldtea »

xyproto wrote: post #31
yyyk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neurons and synapses are incredibly complex. Think you're emulating over 3,000 heterogeneous cores with over half a million links while communication must be low-latency-ish. A third of the links seem to join other links and we don't even know what that does. If there's computation there we'll need even more cores.

It could be simulated slowly at first.

That requires we know how each node behaves and the kind of inputs it has, which we're very very far off from...

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#46

Post by Groxx »

yyyk wrote: post #8
abraxas wrote: post #5

Is it simulated to the level where you could give it some visual stimulus and observe the actions it is trying to take? Could it be wired to a remote robotic insect and control it in real time? I've no idea how detailed these simulation projects and if we are months or decades away from doing what I mentioned

>Is it simulated to the level where you could give it some visual stimulus and observe the actions it is trying to take? No way. First, this mapping doesn't tell us how the synapses are regulated - if we could 'run' this the weights would stay fixed forever and that's not how a brain works. Second, there must be some neurons dedicated to chemical management, and they'd go haywire unless you found a way to deal with t…

For some more context / concrete links: there are ongoing efforts to simulate the C. elegans worm, e.g. https://openworm.org/ , which has ~300 neurons.

The actual precision of this model is: nobody knows, because nobody knows precisely what neurons do / what they react to. We know some of it but definitely not all. But, simulating what we do know, you get quite worm-like behavior, despite whatever flaws exist.

To get a more perfect simulation, we'd need more perfect knowledge of the chemistry and physics, and lots and lots more computing power. It's something that's continually improving, but a lot of shortcuts have to be made to make it even remotely calculable. That'll always be the case, physics is simply too complicated to both efficiently and accurately simulate.

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#47

Post by coldtea »

aperrien wrote: post #29
yyyk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neurons and synapses are incredibly complex. Think you're emulating over 3,000 heterogeneous cores with over half a million links while communication must be low-latency-ish. A third of the links seem to join other links and we don't even know what that does. If there's computation there we'll need even more cores.

I think you may be overestimating the complexity. The better idea is to set up and experiment with different simulation parameters, and see how far they diverge from actual observed behavior.

I think you underestimating the problem. There's no way to even capture and record "observed behavior" at the required level atm...

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#48

Post by margorczynski »

falcor84 wrote: post #15
yyyk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it simulated to the level where you could give it some visual stimulus and observe the actions it is trying to take? No way. First, this mapping doesn't tell us how the synapses are regulated - if we could 'run' this the weights would stay fixed forever and that's not how a brain works. Second, there must be some neurons dedicated to chemical management, and they'd go haywire unless you found a way to deal with t…

>Lastly, we don't have the computational ability just yet to simulate even the mapping itself. Could you please explain why not? 548,000 synapses sounds entirely feasible to me.

Wasn't there success in replicating how the neuron modulates a signal with electronics? If we can reproduce the out given any in then that's interchangeable from a system perspective?

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#49

Post by xipho »

causality0 wrote: post #7

With 3,016 neurons and 548,000 connections, called synapses, the result is by far the most complex map of a whole brain ever made. It's an impressive achievement but I'm not sure I'd call that a whole brain. It's a larval proto-brain with less than 4% the neurons of an adult fly.

Science and Nature are the canonical exaggerators when it comes to headlines. Whole genome, whole mitochondria, complete, total, you name it, there is (nearly?) always an invisible asterisk at the end. When these words are use then Materials and Methods tell you what actually happened.

What's completely crazy in this research is the ability to thin-section fly brains. Thousands and thousands of slices _of a fly brain_, good old physical science at the heart, crowd-sourced to connect the dots (though I'm not positive that's the case in this paper). The open-hardware imaging tools used in some studies like this are also super cool- https://openspim.org/.

Re: Map of an Insect’s Brain

#50

Post by coldtea »

simonh wrote: post #32
jokoon wrote: post #28

I wish AI scientists would try to work on this instead of machine learning.

You really believe we’d be better off doing no machine learning research at all?

Machine learning? We'd be better off with way less technology in general... if we manage to survive tech induced climate change and/or potential nuclear annihilation without billions dying that is...
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