> On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:05:05 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Jerry Kraus
> yahoo.com> wrote in
> <853c1dfa-9601-410a-92ec-faecf7a98...@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>:
>

>>Fair enough.  But, getting back to the mechanical, and the main topic
>>of this particular thread -- rat neurons controlling electronics --
>>what concerns me is that the emphasis in the research is likely to be
>>much more on generating research grant proposals than on developing
>>any useful applications.

>
> I dunno, sure there are cases, like for example ITER, building a large
> fusion power plant in France, that actually does not produce any electricity,
> and never will, and costs billions.
>
> This rat thing however is a rather small scale research, and there are many
> possible practical applications one can think of.
> Just interfacing neurons with electrical signals can be of medical value.
> Think making implants for the blind, like a camera or some sensor in the
> eye, I have read about that.
>
> Understanding the brain is ongoing research.
>

>>I fear this is the nature of the
>>professional research environment -- a self-sustaining bureaucracy.

>
> That comes for free with it, sure, but OTOH we do have many examples where the system
> did produce results.
>
> If the car make a noise, no reason to dump the car and walk, better fix the problem.
>
> In my previous reply I was sort of referring to 'the thing that keeps us alive'.
> I have my own little theory, and I think this would make for an interesting experiment.
>
> I will try to explain it here in a simple way:
>
> You know, when they want to know if somebody is still alive, they look at brain activity.
> If no more brain activity, then the person is considered dead.
> Still organs can be used for transplants if done quick enough.
>
> That brain activity is perhaps measured with electrodes (looking for electrical signals).
> There are all sorts of wave patterns in our brain, different ones for waking, sleeping,
> and deep sleep for example.
>
> Some are periodic, like a sine wave from an oscillator.
> Now here comes the interesting part, I asked myself: 'What can be so that it can stop all of the sudden,
> can produce a continuous wave pattern, and have its pattern for example influenced by external events?'.
>
> As this also goes to sci.electronics.basics, let me introduce the 'oscillator'.
> An oscillator is made up of one or more stages of amplification (say gain), the output feeding
> back to the input.
>
> You all know oscillation (for the other newsgroups, bring a microphone close to a speaker,
> and you get a howling noise (frequency), you have connected an input (mike) to an output (speaker) ).
>
> Now to bring this back to that dish of rat neurons, WHAT IF you did not simply blob those together,
> but made a so called 'ring oscillator' like this, first make a string of neurons connected like this:
>
> A *************** B
>
> Now if you stimulate A in some way, then a little later B will respond,
> the 'message' is passed on from one neuron to the other.
>
> Now the clue of what I am trying to say:
> Fold the string, connect B to A.
> With some luck (enough 'gain' the neurons will have to give a sufficient strong response to
> an input, so they can trigger the next one), and the correct _phase_, it will become a ring oscillator.
>
> Instead of some like dead laying about neurons, we now have a network that displays one of those
> same mysterious 'brain waves' that we do.
> It activates itself, so it does not wither-away in that sense because of lack of stimuli.
>
> So now we have a figure 'O' neuron net, and touching (stimulating) any point on the O
> will sooner or later be experienced by all participating neurons.
> Communication in the network is happening at a fixed speed.
>
> When we go a step further we can have a figure eight '8' and now there are 2 possible signal
> flows.
> One is to follow the '8' as you draw it, if we stimulate bottom left, that signal will travel to top right
> first, then via top left to bottom right, while, the symmetry, consider the left side eyes, (light sensitive)
> and the right actuators....
> The other oscillating mode is 2 circles, the top and bottom of the eight operating as 2 independent circuits.
> In this second case, there will be a continuous conflict in the crossing point of the eighth....
> In the first case there will be harmony.
> Our network will have two states it can be in....
>
> This is not a bad thing, it is actually a requirement, as we also have 2 states of perception, but
> that is for a different posting altogether.
>
> So, life as we know it could be just an oscillator (and radiate EM waves too).
> Killing any neuron in the chain will stop the oscillation,
> a defective or under performing neuron would too.
> Do we have, in the depth of our brain, this essential little oscillator?
>
> For the electronic minded here, here is an example of a simple ring oscillator, running
> in spice simulator:
>  ftp://panteltje.com/pub/rgb.jpg