Yes, it makes little sense to just zoom in on one single neuron         

Information and information processing is distributed over the whole brain?

Well, not all of it all the time. Specific pathways and modules exist for specific types of information

Such as the “visual pathway” and stuff like that?

That’s a good example. The retina already detects and filters some signals right at the beginning

and then the associative cortex deals with the end product: there’s serial and parallel aspects at all levels.

Ok, so “it’s complicated”, again 😟

I’m afraid so! If I am not mistaken Sam once told me about his artificial neural networks and I was quite shocked at their simplicity

Simplicity? 🤔

Well, it is not just a simplistic model of how a neuron works, but also the networks were organized in a totally biologically implausible way

So they forgot essential features?

More like essential constraints: not every neuron is connected to every other neuron! But that is what a lot of artificial networks do

Oh, right, that is a major difference of course!

Now I think he did tell me that there were new developments, there always are, which organized things in a more reasonable way

I think Sam is working with “spiking neural networks” nowadays?

That sounds promising. People tend to think neurons only fire now and then, but in fact they fire all the time

What do you mean?🤔

It’s not like they send on one impulse and then just sit there, as long as you are hearing the sound, seeing the color, etc. they fire!

Oh, ok, so there’s lots of spikes, not just one big yes or no signal?

Indeed, we normally speak of “spike trains”, more like a telegraphed message with lots of yesses and noes 😊

OK, this is very helpful 😉