Re: Neuron Computational Requirements?

From: Ken Clements (Ken@Innovation-On-Demand.com)
Date: Wed Apr 19 2000 - 22:55:39 MDT


Paul Hughes wrote:

>
> Impressive! Using their somewhat simplified simulation of the most
> complex neuron in the nervous system (the Purkinje), it still took their
> i860 processor almost an hour to run a simulation of a single firing.

Even if you simplify it a great deal, it is still impressive. Suppose you
write a program to scale, offset and sum each of the 100k inputs, and that
loop takes 10 instructions, and you are running on a 1000 MIPS machine, well,
that lets you do 1000 firings a second, which is about what the biology can
do. Think of how smart you could be if you could intentionally, and exactly,
wire up even a tiny fraction of your neurons. (Perhaps even smart enough to
wire up the rest.)

-Ken



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