The Most Detailed 3D Reconstruction of Human Brain Tissue (interestingengineering.com) 25
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: Imagine exploring the intricate world within a single cubic millimeter of human brain tissue. It might seem insignificant, but within that tiny space lies a universe of complexity -- 57,000 individual cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and a staggering 150 million synapses, the junctions where neurons communicate. All this information translates to a mind-boggling 1,400 terabytes of data. That's the kind of groundbreaking achievement researchers from Harvard and Google have just accomplished.
Leading the charge at Harvard is Professor Jeff Lichtman, a renowned expert in brain structure. Partnering with Google AI, Lichtman's team has co-created the most detailed 3D reconstruction of a human brain fragment to date. This intricate map, published in Science, offers an unprecedented view of the human temporal cortex, the region responsible for memory and other higher functions. Envision a piece of brain tissue roughly half the size of a rice grain but magnified to reveal every cell and its web of neural connections in vivid detail. This remarkable feat is the culmination of nearly a decade of collaboration between Harvard and Google. Lichtman's expertise in electron microscopy imaging is combined with Google's cutting-edge AI algorithms. [...]
The newly published map in Science reveals previously unseen details of brain structure. One such discovery is a rare but powerful set of axons, each connected by up to 50 synapses, potentially influencing a significant number of neighboring neurons. The team also encountered unexpected structures, like a small number of axons forming intricate whorls. Since the sample came from a patient with epilepsy, it's unclear if these formations are specific to the condition or simply uncommon occurrences.
Leading the charge at Harvard is Professor Jeff Lichtman, a renowned expert in brain structure. Partnering with Google AI, Lichtman's team has co-created the most detailed 3D reconstruction of a human brain fragment to date. This intricate map, published in Science, offers an unprecedented view of the human temporal cortex, the region responsible for memory and other higher functions. Envision a piece of brain tissue roughly half the size of a rice grain but magnified to reveal every cell and its web of neural connections in vivid detail. This remarkable feat is the culmination of nearly a decade of collaboration between Harvard and Google. Lichtman's expertise in electron microscopy imaging is combined with Google's cutting-edge AI algorithms. [...]
The newly published map in Science reveals previously unseen details of brain structure. One such discovery is a rare but powerful set of axons, each connected by up to 50 synapses, potentially influencing a significant number of neighboring neurons. The team also encountered unexpected structures, like a small number of axons forming intricate whorls. Since the sample came from a patient with epilepsy, it's unclear if these formations are specific to the condition or simply uncommon occurrences.
Why (Score:2)
Why use Abby Normal's brain?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
So then, why is it so damned hard for very intelligent people to make something like an M4 chip for example, but these bits of brain supposedly happen all by themselves?
Ok, fine, you're right. Jesus is Lord. You happy now?
Re: (Score:2)
Because evolution has had 500 million years to try random stuff and only keep the good bits. Come back when CPU design has had even just a millennia or two.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Found the idiot.
Re:Evolution? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is actually a valid question. It just has no valid answer at this time.
Re: (Score:1)
You're right that it has no answer, but it's like asking "if lions can't outrun a cheetah, then are there so many cells in their legs?"
It's utterly fucking arbitrary.
I mean, let's look at the question:
If the brain is complex, then why is it hard for us to do arbitrary thing that we deem to be complex?
There's precisely no implied relation between those two things. It is a stupid question.
Re: (Score:2)
Eggsactly.
distractions? (Score:1)
why is it so damned hard for very intelligent people to make something like an M4 chip for example
People like you are flinging poop at them?
Re:Evolution? (Score:4, Insightful)
Check back on the M4 in 3.8 billion years.
Re: (Score:2)
One is a "perfect" digital structure that cannot tolerate faults. It is also 2D (with some layering), which makes interconnect much, much harder. The other is an analog and highly fault-tolerant 3D structure where nobody actually understands how it works or why it works at all. Also, nobody knows whether anything "happens by itself" when a human brain forms. Humans cannot handle complexity on the level of a human brain and that is by a large number of orders of magnitude. That M4 chip only is doable because
Re: (Score:2)
That M4 chip only is doable because it is highly divided in much simpler elements or it would be quite undoable for the human race already.
Same applied for the brain, and that is the very basis of modern AI/ML.
Will we ever "understand" the "complexity" of it? That's an absurd notion.
It's like asking us to "understand" what every atom in the sun does.
We can only model it in aggregate, and to that end, our model of what the brain physical does is quite good, though still incomplete.
Not understanding fully well how an emergent property arises does not stop one from modeling the observing and quantifying said emergent quality.
Your reasoning
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Proteins do not fold randomly.
Re: (Score:2)
It's because the brain, in contrast to M4 chips, was not designed. It evolved. Evolution opens up whole new worlds of complexity that humans are not capable of understanding.
1.4 petabytes (Score:2)
I wonder when we'll be able to make a 1 mm^3 stack of M.2 cards hold that much data. I just checked: I can get a 1U unit which will hold all that. I found 8 TB M.2 cards so we'd need 175 of those. How big would that be? Would just the cards fit in a shoe box?
Let's go with that and do some back of the envelope estimates. I'm guessing that's 10cm x 15cm x 30cm. That's 4,500 cm^3 or 4.5e6 mm^3. If we follow Moore's Law and assume storage density doubles every 18 months, we need 22 doublings or 33 years. Maybe
They cheated!! (Score:2)
They drew Trump's brain which is just a void with a solitary brain cell in the middle.
Did they locate ... (Score:2)
... the worm?
Re: (Score:2)
Nice UI really. (Score:2)