Virtual Fly Brain Computer Model
http://brainstimulant.blogspot.com/2009/06/virtual-fly-brain-computer-model.html
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Most people think about ways that they can get rid of insects. However, some scientists are
actually considering what it would take to create artificial insects with virtual brain's.
Researchers are now planning to create a computer simulation of a fly's brain (drosophila).
Could this virtual fly brain enable military mad scientists to fine tune a bug's functioning?
Perhaps you could recalibrate a bug's pleasure circuitry so it would find enjoyment in
injecting deadly poison into enemy combatants. Or maybe this might allow the development
of increasingly complex forms of insect behavior like swarming or intelligence gathering by
precisely altering the bug's neural wetware (with the help of the model).
I've previously mentioned about some attempts to construct computer simulations of the
human brain (see computer brain simulation and blue brain). A human brain model in silico
is quite a monumental task to undertake and may not come to fruition for quite some time.
I've also noted before about my skepticism in the ability to model consciousness without the
physics of our world. The human brain contains about 10^12 brain cells, 10^15 synapses
and an exceedingly diverse array of synaptic proteins. At the very least, all of these are likely
important for the overall functioning of the mind. Comparatively, the fly nervous system only
has about 100,000 neurons.
So it's surprising that modeling a bug's brain wasn't an obvious first choice. It's just so much
simpler to do than a human brain. I personally find it highly probable that all insects have a
simplified form of consciousness.
For the virtual drosophila brain, the researchers are proposing that sensory inputs and
outputs could be added into the model. These senses include basically everything that
would be part of a bugs perceptual experience (tactile, auditory, visual, gustatory, olfactory,
even magnetosensory). An insect likely has a unitary consciousness that coalesces all
sensations into one overall perception with discrete qualia. A more voluminous brain can
probably enable a more complex conscious awareness. So we can assume that simpler
organisms likely have a less complicated representation of objective reality. Specific "objects"
may appear much cruder and far different to a fly than they would to a human being. An
insect's consciousness only has to represent reality enough to drive behavior in a specific
way.
A major stumbling block to modeling an insect brain is being able to scan all the relevant
brain cell configurations and synaptic connections. They could visualize aspects of brain
functioning using electron microscopy. However this would generate 26 terabytes of
information and would require a huge amount of man hours to prepare the material.
Recently faster methods have been developed to procure and analyze the data. This may not
remain a constraint forever in the future.
The researchers mention that there are about 2000 to 3000 genes linked to human inherited
diseases that are conserved between a fly and human. So being able to better understand the
mind of a this insect has implications for human brain disorders as well. However, there are
also considerable differences between the two, such as the fact that drosophila brain cell
axons are not myelinated. This lack of myelination means that neural signaling may happen
less quickly than in mammalian brains. Also drosophila doesn't really have the same blood
flow and cardiovascular system as mammalian brains do. So oxygen reaches the neurons in
a fly in a completely different way (not through red blood cells).
The researchers conceptualize the model as being used to predict the subsequent behavioral
fly output when a specific neuronal adjustment is undertaken. Like how would a fly act if
scientists were to upregulate a single receptor protein in a key brain region by genetic
engineering? In the past, researchers have been constantly modifying the genetic source
code of drosophila. However, this virtual model could potentially exponentially increase the
understanding of how neural changes encode for behavior. It might become much easier to
remodel a bug's functioning to essentially do whatever a scientist wanted it to do. They
would basically be using a control type theory for the virtual model that could continuously
be adjusted in order to refine it. So the virtual model may not necessarily have to be
conscious in order to successfully predict the behavioral output of any brain change.
If successful, a virtual bug model could allow the creation of increasingly bizarre insect
minds that have never before been seen in nature. Better modeling and understanding of
these simulations might allow scientists to fashion more computationally efficient insect
brains, for instance. Maybe they could increase the amount of proteins in the synapses or
add myelination to the neurons so as to overclock the fly's brain. They might be able to tell
ahead of time the subsequent effect on behavior. Studying the nature of consciousness
would also be a fascinating aspect to this. Could you create a bug that was blissed out and
euphoric? Darwinian natural selection usually precludes these extreme states of well being,
but that doesn't mean you can't engineer them in an insect. Just imagine all the unique
modes of consciousness that are possible by tinkering with a bug's genetic code.
Perhaps these models could go a long way in helping to understand consciousness in an
objective fashion and how it relates to behavior.
Obviously this project could take quite some time, but I think it could potentially happen
faster than making a human brain computer model. The first models would probably be
simplified, but could increase in detail over time.
The fact that researchers can genetically engineer and breed flies so quickly also means that
it would be much easier to test out the model to see if it was predicting behavior. A lot of
interesting things could become possible in the future as this field matures.
Armstrong, J., & van Hemert, J. (2009). Towards a virtual fly brain Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 367
(1896), 2387-2397 DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2008.0308
Next
http://brainstimulant.blogspot.com/2009/06/virtual-fly-brain-computer-model.html
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Most people think about ways that they can get rid of insects. However, some scientists are
actually considering what it would take to create artificial insects with virtual brain's.
Researchers are now planning to create a computer simulation of a fly's brain (drosophila).
Could this virtual fly brain enable military mad scientists to fine tune a bug's functioning?
Perhaps you could recalibrate a bug's pleasure circuitry so it would find enjoyment in
injecting deadly poison into enemy combatants. Or maybe this might allow the development
of increasingly complex forms of insect behavior like swarming or intelligence gathering by
precisely altering the bug's neural wetware (with the help of the model).
I've previously mentioned about some attempts to construct computer simulations of the
human brain (see computer brain simulation and blue brain). A human brain model in silico
is quite a monumental task to undertake and may not come to fruition for quite some time.
I've also noted before about my skepticism in the ability to model consciousness without the
physics of our world. The human brain contains about 10^12 brain cells, 10^15 synapses
and an exceedingly diverse array of synaptic proteins. At the very least, all of these are likely
important for the overall functioning of the mind. Comparatively, the fly nervous system only
has about 100,000 neurons.
So it's surprising that modeling a bug's brain wasn't an obvious first choice. It's just so much
simpler to do than a human brain. I personally find it highly probable that all insects have a
simplified form of consciousness.
For the virtual drosophila brain, the researchers are proposing that sensory inputs and
outputs could be added into the model. These senses include basically everything that
would be part of a bugs perceptual experience (tactile, auditory, visual, gustatory, olfactory,
even magnetosensory). An insect likely has a unitary consciousness that coalesces all
sensations into one overall perception with discrete qualia. A more voluminous brain can
probably enable a more complex conscious awareness. So we can assume that simpler
organisms likely have a less complicated representation of objective reality. Specific "objects"
may appear much cruder and far different to a fly than they would to a human being. An
insect's consciousness only has to represent reality enough to drive behavior in a specific
way.
A major stumbling block to modeling an insect brain is being able to scan all the relevant
brain cell configurations and synaptic connections. They could visualize aspects of brain
functioning using electron microscopy. However this would generate 26 terabytes of
information and would require a huge amount of man hours to prepare the material.
Recently faster methods have been developed to procure and analyze the data. This may not
remain a constraint forever in the future.
The researchers mention that there are about 2000 to 3000 genes linked to human inherited
diseases that are conserved between a fly and human. So being able to better understand the
mind of a this insect has implications for human brain disorders as well. However, there are
also considerable differences between the two, such as the fact that drosophila brain cell
axons are not myelinated. This lack of myelination means that neural signaling may happen
less quickly than in mammalian brains. Also drosophila doesn't really have the same blood
flow and cardiovascular system as mammalian brains do. So oxygen reaches the neurons in
a fly in a completely different way (not through red blood cells).
The researchers conceptualize the model as being used to predict the subsequent behavioral
fly output when a specific neuronal adjustment is undertaken. Like how would a fly act if
scientists were to upregulate a single receptor protein in a key brain region by genetic
engineering? In the past, researchers have been constantly modifying the genetic source
code of drosophila. However, this virtual model could potentially exponentially increase the
understanding of how neural changes encode for behavior. It might become much easier to
remodel a bug's functioning to essentially do whatever a scientist wanted it to do. They
would basically be using a control type theory for the virtual model that could continuously
be adjusted in order to refine it. So the virtual model may not necessarily have to be
conscious in order to successfully predict the behavioral output of any brain change.
If successful, a virtual bug model could allow the creation of increasingly bizarre insect
minds that have never before been seen in nature. Better modeling and understanding of
these simulations might allow scientists to fashion more computationally efficient insect
brains, for instance. Maybe they could increase the amount of proteins in the synapses or
add myelination to the neurons so as to overclock the fly's brain. They might be able to tell
ahead of time the subsequent effect on behavior. Studying the nature of consciousness
would also be a fascinating aspect to this. Could you create a bug that was blissed out and
euphoric? Darwinian natural selection usually precludes these extreme states of well being,
but that doesn't mean you can't engineer them in an insect. Just imagine all the unique
modes of consciousness that are possible by tinkering with a bug's genetic code.
Perhaps these models could go a long way in helping to understand consciousness in an
objective fashion and how it relates to behavior.
Obviously this project could take quite some time, but I think it could potentially happen
faster than making a human brain computer model. The first models would probably be
simplified, but could increase in detail over time.
The fact that researchers can genetically engineer and breed flies so quickly also means that
it would be much easier to test out the model to see if it was predicting behavior. A lot of
interesting things could become possible in the future as this field matures.
Armstrong, J., & van Hemert, J. (2009). Towards a virtual fly brain Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 367
(1896), 2387-2397 DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2008.0308
Next
 | |  | |  | |  |