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The brain has more computational capacity than previously thought, according to UCLA researchers:
Dendrites have been considered simple passive conduits of signals. But by working with animals that were moving around freely, the UCLA team showed that dendrites are in fact electrically active — generating nearly 10 times more spikes than the soma (neuron cell body). The finding, reported [DOI: 10.1126/science.aaj1497] [DX] in the March 9 issue of the journal Science, challenges the long-held belief that spikes in the soma are the primary way in which perception, learning and memory formation occur.
"Dendrites make up more than 90 percent of neural tissue," said UCLA neurophysicist Mayank Mehta, the study's senior author. "Knowing they are much more active than the soma fundamentally changes the nature of our understanding of how the brain computes information. This is a major departure from what neuroscientists have believed for about 60 years," said Mehta, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, of neurology and of neurobiology.
Because the dendrites are nearly 100 times larger in volume than the neuronal centers, Mehta said, the large number of dendritic spikes taking place could mean that the brain has more than 100 times the computational capacity than was previously thought.
Is that your final answer?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:43AM (4 children)
"treat it as a "memory palace" to recall any experience?"
Memory is funny. A lot of minds don't seem to work like everyone else's minds.
Suppose that you attended a rally. You personally get to speak to the famous person for whom the rally is being held, for less than a minute. You do realize this famous person meets hundreds of people per day. So, you got to speak to a famous person, for some seconds.
Then, sevreal years later, you again meet this famous person. He addresses you by name, and asks how things are going in your home town.
Is that remarkable? Isn't that a sign of something akin to an eidetic memory? Some people don't forget stuff.
What would really be great, is if science begins to understand how those different minds are different - and help the rest of us to remember things just as well.
Oh - the famous person in this scenario is Bill Clinton, and the not-famous person is one of my co-workers. Believe his story or not, but I've never found a reason to distrust him. I believe his story about meeting Clinton twice.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @09:25AM
That is because Bill Clinton is a reptile. They have many times the memory capacity of a human being.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday March 15 2017, @01:59PM (2 children)
Bumping into a president long enough to have a conversation would be a fantastic oddity. Bumping into the president a second time years later and the president knows you by name and asks "how's your home town" is nightmare fuel. You are living on the outer limits of the twilight zone. http://shieldheadwear.com/ [shieldheadwear.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:18PM (1 child)
Well, Mike didn't "bump into" then-Governor Clinton. Mike attended a rally, where a person might well expect to "bump into" the person for whom the rally was organized.
The second time, if I recall Mike's story correctly, was during a Clinto re-election affair. But, yeah, it's still kinda scary that the then president actually remembered the name and hometown of some nobody. To be fair, Mike's hometown is only - uhhhh - let me check - 38 miles from Hope. It's possible that Clinton remembered Mike due to some shared knowledge that Mike has forgotten about, or neglected to tell me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @04:12PM
That seems more likely and a lot less scary. Unlike the other AC up there, I remain convinced that he isn't a lizard person. His "wife" is, but he just has too many mammalian proclivities to be one.