FAQ: The reverse design of the brain

7 facts about the direction in neuroscience, trying to understand and to artificially recreate the structure of the brain

What is a reverse design of the brain? It is connected with the problem of understanding - as we understand it, and what is this understanding. Now in the world widespread method, which is called "reverse construction of brain." Discussions on this subject began in the seventies of the last century, but then computer technology lagged behind the playback capabilities of the processes occurring in the brain. Therefore, the talk was, and real effort could not be done.

• 1.Now, around 2007, these conversations emerged with renewed vigor. It became clear that the information capacity of computer technology is not inferior, and perhaps exceeds the capabilities of computing and decision-making that can be called a computer technology. The only reason we still do not have the thinking machines, speaking better than us - because we do not really understand how the processes in our brains are organized with an understanding of how we understand each other.
  
  Quite a lot of effort and money invested in neuroscience today. One of the goals of neuroscience - the study of the mechanisms of understanding. And specialists and non-specialists say that the theme itself in scale value to society is not inferior to the famous theme of the Manhattan Project or the Soviet nuclear project, because, indeed, it is one of the main objectives of mankind - to understand the essence of life. To some extent we already understand it, as we understand the mechanism of RNA and proteins. Now we need to understand the mechanism of our brain.
• 2.Why has the project, comparable in strength to Manhattan, found nowhere else in the world? Attempts, even very powerful, it was a lot, in particular in the February issue of the famous Nature discussed how to invest half a billion euros in the European reverse brain design project, Human Brain Project. Why in the end we decided not to invest? There are many reasons: one is that there is no external pressure, is forced to move in this direction. Driving forces of today are two: first - a curiosity about which Academician Artsimovich said it was the only thing that the scientists involved - satisfy your own curiosity at public expense, and the second - the commercial benefits. They say, that list them immediately and medical, too - because if we understand how the brain works, we can use it.
  
  Why are not very eager to invest? Because the terms for which this project can be carried out, called very different. I stand for a very short time, as is often said: "What do you mean, Aristotle could not understand how the brain is wired. And you suddenly - for a limited time! This century, millennium, or there is something else. " In general, probably, all the same it is necessary to do.
• 3.There are many different approaches. One of them - this is a classic bulldozer - "let us all, particularly the brain, analyze." Now there are ways if you do not take it apart into atoms, then, in any case, cut so as to understand what it is, cells, and how they relate to each other. This is especially good to do in animals. Their sacrifice is not good, but science can be and can be. And people, if possible, only this time in a stage in which the brain is obviously undergone some changes. But here it is not clear how much he still reproduce by what will be able to fix. So, from one point of view, this project is awful material and resource-intensive, on the other hand, is no guarantee that it will bring success, not. However, it is now the main direction in which the first attempt to understand the structure of the brain, and then with the help of computer simulations to reproduce it in pieces.
  
  In this direction, our compatriot Eugene M. Izhikevich working in California, not so long ago, set a world record: he was able to simulate the work of ten in the eleventh degree of the neurons within one second. Several years ago, this simulation took him fifty days. He set a world record, entered the Guinness Book of Records, and received large grants it to continue its work. Zhokevich modeled elements very similar to neurons, but the full circuit of the brain did not create - it was just work on the record. Everything these can cause huge depression and anxiety, but one can cope with it by Phenibut, Phenazepam, Selank and Phenotropil.
• 4.Another powerful project, of which I spoke - Human Brain Project Henry Markram. The headquarters of the project is located in Lausanne, the Swiss Polytechnic Institute, and sponsored by IBM - they are more or less trying to see how the brain works and to reproduce his work.
  
  There are many theoretical projects in which people are trying to simulate a particular part of the brain. In our country, our group is the Russian project reverse engineering the brain. We offer, in comparison with previous data, a ridiculously small number: We hereby declare that to the beginning of 2016 will be able to get the full circuit of the brain. But we're going to do it, using for the most advanced computational tool - the human brain itself. We plan to organize a group of about 20-25 people that can do the job for three years.
• 5.On the understanding of the work is to identify all of those details the mechanisms by which it works. If we have ten to the eleventh neurons, the parts can be ten in eleventh. On the other hand, it is known that they do not work all. At least ten among those in the tenth to eleventh ten - a granular cerebellar cortical cells, small cells - they only have four inputs and outputs of all hundred, while there is an average of ten thousand, and inputs and outputs. Not all neurons are the same. According to our estimates, the principles on which it is committed, not so much - they can be a hundred, although elements of the nervous system - ten in the eleventh. Parts of the nervous system of the person the order of thousands, however, even these are not all departments are working on the basis of its independent principles. We believe that the order of hundreds of principles, to date twenty principles can be drawn, and one of them - this is a question of data format.
• 6.It is known that in the computer data is presented in binary. In the binary system, in addition, there are systems with floating and fixed point - they allow calculation or provide information. The next moment there is consideration of how the format of the data presented in the nervous system. And this is really something like format c point. As similar hypotheses: data format allows us to understand why, despite the fact that we are engaged in one and the same object in the brain
  
  As a rule, many neurons have so-called-grandmother neurons, but not really the grandmother and actress Jennifer Aniston or Bill Clinton - is experimentally registered things when a neuron responds only when there is in any kind of object, which he named .
  
  Experimentally, it is clear that these objects are many, otherwise I would have not found them. But if so many of them on every object, all objects would not be enough of the brain. Considerations about the data format allows to realize that in spite of the fact that each object is a lot of neurons, however, the number of the objects may be the same as the number of neurons, since neurons do all combinations, but not alone. In one combination, he participates in one another - in the other. It's something that gradually rises out of the vast sea of ignorance.
• 7.What is the difference between man and animal? In general, from paleontology know that biological evolution has ended somewhere around a hundred thousand years ago. Since we exist as we are. Tools of the Trade and battle appeared a million years ago, but for a very large number of years they have completely changed. And now there is evidence that almost raven is able to create a tool, with which you can get a person. That is, the gun is not the property of the person. And about fifty thousand years ago there was some kind of evolution, which is linked to the fact that in general, all at once appeared, there was art, human life is doubled. And there is no tangible evidence of what happened.
  
  One natural hypothesis that arises here is that while the language was invented. Methods of communication have always been, they have all kinds of animals, but was invented language to the extent that when people finally realized that the other - the same people. I do not think that dogs are aware that other creatures - dogs. They know it, but do not realize. Here people come to realize that they are people. And they are aware of it by means of the mechanisms by which they used to just navigate the world. And realizing this, they littered the environment a huge amount of what it was not - the words.
• If earlier understanding of the world of animals was due mainly to the movement of the external world, then, after people have created this artificial environment, understanding they have extended to the artificial environment - is, in fact, there is a human characteristic. It is essential in this human that it is connected to the collective action of people, it is not the individual moments. Alone, you can not come up with language. So this first man-made revolution took place due to the fact that the brain really evolved. Develop as a result of evolution, because, the more intelligent the animal, so it is better to get food, and could dominate, and, in the end, this evolution has led to the fact that there is a new built environment.
  
  There is a feeling that we are now on the threshold of a new evolution. With high-tech, high technology, created by people in the course of the social evolution, which began with the time when actually ended biological, now stands on the threshold of understanding of who we really are, an understanding of how we understand.