X-Message-Number: 26861
From: 
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 04:01:00 EDT
Subject: Re: CryoNet #26849 To Thomas Donaldson

You said :

I also  note that Yvan Bozzonetti in msg #26838 discusses computer
simulation of  synapses. Yes, synapses can be quite complex. However
I'd also say that  unlike neurons, a single synapse does not need
lots of computers to  simulate. It's not got any parallelism, so
that we don't run into the  problems caused by simulating parallel
machines with fewer machines: the  problem I pointed out in my 
last message on computer-simulated brains (for  Yvan).


Are yor sure there is no parallelism in synapses ? What about the numerous  
ionic and metabotropic channels here ?
 
Simulating a true synapse is not so simple, there are tension gated or  

neuromediator ionotropics systems, more than 1000 different metabotropic  
channels 
are known. I don't count the modulation by many peptides, ATP,  adenosine, 
histamines, hormones, CO and NO gas,... The contracting spines or  deformable 
ones, the double synapses on a single spine,...
 
I would be curious how you define "simple" and "complex", where is the  limit 
?
 
Yvan Bozzonetti.


 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26861