Even our neurons’ axons are like smart PCs

If you want to see your brain in electronic terms, you should picture it as the biggest network imaginable. It’s widely accepted that each neuron in our bodies is complex enough to be something like a little computer. Neurons are considered “pretty weird” on that account:

“Unlike their blobby brethren, neurons have distinct regions. There’s the cell body, home to the nucleus. Then come the axons and dendrites, the signal-carrying and signal-receiving parts of the neuron that send long, spindly arms to form connections, called synapses, with other neurons. “

Harvard Medical School, “Once seen as nerve cells’ foot soldier, the axon emerges as decision-maker” at ScienceDaily

But the system turns out to be “far more complex than once thought” because, contrary to expectations, far-flung regions (thousands of cell body widths from their nucleus) can even make independent decisions: More.

See also: Could DNA be hacked, like software? It’s already been done. As a language, DNA can carry malicious messages

and

The brain exceeds the most powerful computers in efficiency. Eric Holloway: Human thinking takes vastly less computational effort to arrive at the same conclusions

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Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

 

 

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