About IBM Cat Brain

My previous post is about IBM Brain Simulator. It turns out that there is still hot discussion about whether it can simulate brain activity or not, as written on an article in Spectrum IEEE.

The IBM Brain Simulator can model the neurons, the synapses and the connectivity of them. It is true that the numbers of neurons and so on are equal to cat's brain or human visual cortex. But one researcher of EPFL Blue Brain, Henry Makram disagreed with the method that IBM Brain Simulator from Almaden's lab used to model the synapses. Henry Makram questioned why ion channeling in the synapses was not modeled in the Almaden's cat brain simulator.

In my opinion, It is already a break-through to model neuronal connectivity. To model the synapses functionality for each connectivity is really hard job. It will take more processors and consume more energy than just 1.4 MW.

My interess is to combine brain simulator and brain-computer interface to create a quasi-telepathic between human and computer. I don't really care which brain model they use: the IBM Almaden's or the EPFL Blue Brain's.

Brain-Machine Interface in the 19th century

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is not really a new technology as we can read from the news from IEEE Spectrum. There was a Head Set in the 19th century by pseudo-scientist, called "Phrenologist". The purpose of phrenology is to find correlation between a person's character and the morphology of the skull.

In one article of IEEE Spectrum, the picture number 2 shows the head set. It is mentioned like this:

HEAD CASE: Today’s electromedical researchers are busy mapping the brain, but 19th-century electrical engineers were already on the case. This electrical phrenology apparatus consists of two parts, a headpiece and a wooden box containing a sledge induction coil and three batteries. The headpiece forms a crown 23 centimeters (9 inches) in diameter with 13 brass electrodes evenly spaced across it.

From the picture, we can see the early research of Brain-Machine Interface. Well, it is not really a machine since the function is unknown. For more information about the history of Phrenology can be seen from their website.