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2024-11-11

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Fly brain sheds light on human thought process (www.bbc.com)

submitted 3 months ago by sun_is_ra to c/[email protected]

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Now for the first time scientists researching the brain of a fly have identified the position, shape and connections of every single one of its 130,000 cells and 50 million connections.

It's the most detailed analysis of the brain of an adult animal ever produced.

One leading brain specialist independent of the new research described the breakthrough as a "huge leap" in our understanding of our own brains.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (3 children)

So this is basically a physical map of the cells and their interconnections. We also know quite a lot about how the individual cells function.

So... if we simulated the behavior of all those cells and connected them as described by this map, and basically just turned it on... would it behave like a fly? Would it respond to stimuli as if it were a fly?

The computer needed for that would probably be the size of a building and eat electricity like candy, but it'd be interesting - the functional brain of a living creature reproduced in software.

[–] JadenSmith 7 points 3 months ago

Your last point makes me think of the picture of that 2MB hard drive from yesteryear. That black and white one where they are getting the massive thing (bigger than my fridge freezer) onto a truck, if I'm remembering right.

Imagine if the computers needed, in a couple decades, will be much smaller and capable.

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