A chunk of our thoughts

October / November 1976

From “Pharmacology and the Mind”: Since historic occasions, medication have been used to revive psychological well being or discover the thoughts. It was mentioned that the Homeric doctor Polydama offered Menelaos and Helen with “a drug in opposition to sorrow and anger, a drug to outlive despair” on their method dwelling to Troy. The variety of mind-bending medication accessible right now is numerous. Some have altered the course of medical follow; others have modified the material of our society. Many have larger specificity of motion and fewer unwanted side effects than ever earlier than. The event of such medication has been paralleled by our elevated data of how medication work on the molecular stage to change habits. On this regard, one of the crucial fruitful analysis approaches has concerned the research of how nerve cells talk with different cells within the physique, and the way varied medication may alter this communication.

Might / June 1987

From “Designing Computer systems That Suppose the Means We Do”: Neuroscientists have come to appreciate that the structure of the mind is central to its perform. Particular person neurons aren’t sensible by themselves, however after they’re linked to one another they turn into fairly clever. The issue is, no one is aware of how they do it. It isn’t that neurons are quick: in sending their electrochemical messages to different neurons, they’re 100,000 occasions slower than a typical laptop change. However what our brains lack in velocity they make up in“wetware,” as it’s generally referred to as. The mind accommodates from 10 billion to a trillion neurons, every of which can be linked to anyplace from 1,000 to 100,000 others. If this huge internet of interconnected neurons kinds the grand collective conspiracy we name our minds, possibly an unlimited interconnected internet of mechanical switches could make a machine that thinks.

July / August 2014

From “Cracking the Mind’s Codes”: One cause such questions in regards to the mind’s schemes for encoding data have proved so troublesome to crack is that the human mind is so immensely advanced, encompassing 86 billion neurons linked by one thing on the order of a quadrillion synaptic connections … It’s also price noting that what neuroengineers attempt to do is a bit like eavesdropping—tapping into the mind’s personal inside communications … A few of that eavesdropping could mislead us. Each neural code we are able to crack will inform us one thing about how the mind operates, however not each code we crack is one thing the mind itself makes direct use of. A few of them could also be … unintended tics that, even when they show helpful for engineering and medical purposes, might be diversions on the highway to a full understanding of the mind.

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