by gardenfelder on 10/28/22, 8:38 PM
The piece is chock full of interesting findings, using terms biologists routinely use. But, do those terms they use, e.g. neuron, synapse mean the same thing they do for biologists? For instances, we know that synapses can be one of excitatory or inhibitory, and we know that neurons are bathed in a wash of hormones. Neurons make hormones which serve other functions throughout the brain. For instance "Neuron-Derived Estrogen Regulates Synaptic Plasticity and Memory" [1]. How does the linked work stack up against that?
[1] https://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/15/2792
by POiNTx on 10/29/22, 12:13 AM
I know these don't map 1-to-1 on real natural synapses, but let's say you can magically replace all your natural synapses in a brain with this. What would be the experienced effect? Would you be able to think faster, or would perceived time slow down? Or something else?
by TheRealPomax on 10/28/22, 11:11 PM
Not exactly impressive, nature is famous for calling it quits once something works well enough. Anyone who wants to can create a non-biological neuron/axion connection that runs orders of magnitude faster. The real question is "but does it actually do something" because that's where nature shines pretty well.
by thrown_22 on 10/28/22, 11:53 PM
Bullets also fly 30,000 times faster than bumble bees. We're not about to use them for pollination though.
by raziel2701 on 10/28/22, 11:09 PM
These work only at a few Kelvin because they need superconducting nanowires. Will this type of stuff ever leave the lab?
by dschuetz on 10/29/22, 10:52 AM
I'm not sure whatever for they need such nanowire synapses, because in real/wet neural networks the timings of neural firing, delay and latency is as essential as the synapse itself. How fast a wet synapse works is modulated, some are isolated from modulation. I don't think a new synthetic synapse being 30.000x faster will do anything good if the whole system is not up to par with a wet neural system.
by yarg on 10/29/22, 1:31 AM
What're the thermal dissipation requirements?
How densly is it possible to structure them and still provide adequate cooling?