(in the extracellular fluid) relative to inside the cell (in the cytoplasm). The negative charge within the cell is created by the cell membrane being more permeable to potassium ion movement than sodium ion movement. In neurons, potassium ions are maintained at high concentrations within the ce...
They become powerful, however, when they’re connected to each other. Neurons are arranged in layers in a neural network and each neuron passes on values to the next layer. Input values cascade forward through the network and affect the output in a process called forward propagati...
Figure dendritic domains. Credit: Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience A new mouse study from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) reveals that neurons establish "mini-computers" very early in life to make the brain computationally powerful. The study ispublishedin the journaleLife. Buildi...
As you age, it’s easy to think that the sharpest, most clear-headed phase of your life is in the past. But numerous studies show that neurons continue to regenerate in adults. In 2013, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Swedenfoundthat 700 new neurons are formed each day in the...
shaped maze in virtual reality. A cue, which happened several seconds beforehand, indicated to the mice whether a reward would be in the left or right arm of the T. The Lee lab used powerful microscopes to map the structural connections between the same neurons recorded during the maze task...
intelligence to computing power is likely to be a misguided over-simplification. For one thing, transistors have already far surpassed the speed of neurons, which can process a single lexical decision task at no faster than 60 bps; however, transistors are far less efficient at extracting ...
Likewise, dogs have a very good sense of smell, so the part of their brain that can identify different smells is very powerful compared to other animals. However, these examples concern senses that are familiar to us even if they are considerably more sensitive. Thus it is possible to give...
We're learning more about the craving that fuels self-defeating habits—and how new discoveries can help us kick the habit.
Powerful emotions feel like irrefutable facts. They wash over us, take over our bodies, and change our perceptions. We call this ‘affective realism’ where your emotional experiences feel like they are the truth of the world around you, when,...
In comparison, most of the AI available at this point would be categorized as weak or narrow AI, as it was developed to focus on specific tasks and applications. It’s worth noting that these AI systems can still be incredibly powerful and complex, with applications ranging from autonomous ve...