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Brain Complexity Directly Mapped Digitally

There are also numerous anatomical data.

Wiring Diagrams of Brain Regions

Humans are much more complex (over ten billion neurons), but for this there are only five

classes of component neurons here. For the rat hippocampus, there is detailed information

and circuit diagrams on the net:

Neuroactivity Detection

In order to see individual nerve cells in their activity, i.e. to pay attention to them, we have

developed a tool ourselves: The “activity detection tool” uses a Fourier transform. A nice

introduction to such approaches is a paper that works in particular with segmentation and

ImageJ (Schulze et al. 2013):

15.4

Possible Objectives

What should be the next step? Well, bioinformatics is very good at analysing sequences,

identifying domains and thus elucidating functions of proteins in the nervous system very

well. Receptors can also be modelled in terms of their structure and their detailed dynam­

ics and function can be investigated in detail. Finally, larger network analyses, in particular

on the “connectome”, the connection of nerve cells, are already planned for several organ­

isms and their nervous systems (mouse, human, insects and others) or have already been

completely carried out in first drafts (cordworm C. elegans, molluscs). Therefore, it is safe

to say that bioinformatics is doing good work in the areas of understanding neurobiol­

ogy and basic research.

The same applies to medical causal research, although here the impetus from bioinfor­

matics is particularly concerned with uncovering the molecular causes of diseases,

thereby supporting diagnosis or even predicting innovative therapies.

More ethically and technically challenging is work on artificial intelligence or on con­

sciousness. Here, it is an ethical imperative to leave all central, moral or ethical decisions

to humans, to take this into account already when structuring the problem and the decision

The Sausage Atlas

https://www.wormatlas.org/neuronalwiring.html

https://www.temporal-­lobe.com/background/connectome

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23537512

15  How Is Our Own Extremely Powerful Brain Constructed?